10million Brits gave up on getting GP appointment last month, damning report reveals
TEN million people gave up on getting a doctor’s appointment last month, shock statistics show.
Millions reported being unable to get in touch with their GPs as either phone lines were jammed or online systems were down.
The hardest hit were women and those living in deprived areas.
The Lib Dem figures also show half a million people went private.
Lib Dem health spokesman Daisy Cooper raged: “We’re hearing devastating stories of people waiting in pain for months or shelling out hard-earned cash to go private.”
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting claimed the NHS is worse than other nations’ health services.
He laid out Labour’s plans for fixing the NHS — which would take a decade, and said: “We would start with the patient experience in primary care and we’ve got to turn around the situation in cancer care.”
Data shows that cancer survival rates are lower in the UK than in France, Germany and the US.
However, government sources described Labour’s plans to build a “neighbourhood health service” as “undeliverable” — claiming it would “bring chaos to GPs surgeries”.