Where you must wait the longest for a GP appointment in England

New study reveals the locations in England that have to wait the longest for a GP appointment

• NHS Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board takes the top spot, registering 12.29% of appointments taking longer than 22 days.
• NHS Dorset ICB is second, while the Norfolk and Waveney ICB comes third.
• NHS North East London ICB is at the bottom of the list with only 3% of appointments taking 22+ days.

A new study by personal injury expert Claims.co.uk reveals that NHS Gloucestershire patients have to wait the longest for a GP appointment in the country.

The study analysed NHS data from England’s 42 Integrated Care Boards (ICB) on GP appointments from July 2021 to December 2023 to identify the one with the longest wait times based on the percentage which took more than 22 days.

NHS Gloucestershire is first on the list, with 590,950 appointments that took over 22 days to occur, which translates into 12.29% of all appointments. The percentage is well above the other regions below, with almost a 3% difference between the first and second spots. There are 73 GP practices within the region, all of which are members of the board.

Second is NHS Dorset with 9.57% of appointments that took over 22 days. The value results from 517,519 appointments over 5,408,922, which were processed by approximately 80 practices that are active in the area.

NHS Norfolk and Waveney takes third place with 524,411 appointments over 22 days over a total of 6,455,359, resulting in 8.12%. The ICB comprises 105 GP practices and five GP provider organisations.

Further down on the list, NHS Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes is fourth with 7.69%. The area presents 91 GP practices.

NHS Somerset closes the top five by a whisker, as its percentage of appointments that took over 22 days is 7.68%, only 0.01% less than the precedent. With over 60 practices, Somerset is the area that comprises the lowest number of them in the top five.