And just for perspective...
just over half (51)% of the 2021 GP survey said they are currently suffering from depression, anxiety, stress, burnout, emotional distress or another mental health condition.
Insufficient investment in the GP workforce does not prevent patient numbers from rising. In fact, despite there being 1,744 fewer fully-qualified FTE GPs today than there were in 2015, each practice has on average 1,918 more patients than in 2015.
There are now just 0.45 fully qualified GPs per 1,000 patients in England – down from 0.52 in 2015. For the GPs that remain, this means increasing numbers of patients to take care of. The average number of patients each GP is responsible for has increased by around 300 – or 16% - since 2015.
This brings the total appointments in October to 33.9 million, which is 10% higher than pre-COVID appointment levels in October.
More appointments, more patients, more complexity, fewer GPs, fewer allied healthcare professionals.