Taking too long to get an appointment sees satisfaction with GP’s service hit lowest level for 25 years

PUBLIC satisfaction with GPs is at its lowest in 25 years — fuelled by problems getting appointments.

For the first time, more people were unhappy with their family doctor than were happy.

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Taking too long to get an appointment has seen satisfaction with GP’s service hit its lowest level for 25 years[/caption]

Some 42 per cent were displeased while 38 per cent were content in what is traditionally the most popular NHS service, a poll of more than 3,100 adults showed.

For the wider NHS, 36 per cent were satisfied and 41 per cent dissatisfied, the British Social Attitudes survey for 2021 showed.

Many pinned their anger on waiting times, staff shortages and under-funding.

John Appleby, of think-tank The Nuffield Trust, said the fall in satisfaction with GPs was “very severe”.

Dan Wellings, of think-tank The King’s Fund, which co-sponsored the poll, said the NHS had enjoyed a “halo effect” early in the Covid pandemic but the public’s patience ran out last year as the waiting list ballooned to more than six million.

He added: “People were seeing other services opening up thinking, ‘Well, why isn’t the NHS opening up?’.

“Four in ten of the population are on the waiting list or have a family member who is — and that’s the story behind the frustration.”

He said support for the NHS model “remains strong” — and the public “just want the one they have got to work”.

Professor Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said the poll’s findings “reflect a service working under crippling staffing and resource pressures following the pandemic, which has pushed general practice, and the wider NHS, to its limits”.

NHS medical director Prof Stephen Powis said the Covid crisis had proved “challenging” for the health service.

He added: “The NHS has set out a blueprint to address the Covid-19 backlogs as well as setting out plans to improve GP access.”