Healthwatch England - GP referrals and ambulance delays

News - 1 May 2023

Healthwatch England published the second piece of research on GP referrals, which was based on the experiences of 1,518 people who have asked for a GP referral for tests, diagnosis or treatment. Nearly one in five (18%) of those people required four or more GP appointments to get a referral. Healthwatch England have called on decision makers to do more to understand the referral process eg. collect national data, and to improve communication with patients.
They secured an exclusive article with the Times to highlight the issue of referral delays.

Their blog, GP referrals: we need to address the ‘hidden’ waiting list, has been published: https://www.healthwatch.co.uk/blog/2023-04-05/gp-referrals-we-need-address-hidden-waiting-list.

Also in the Times…

Recently, the Times published a story about people facing “fatal delays” in care, with heart attack patients waiting more than three hours for an ambulance in parts of the country.

The article quotes Chris McCann saying: “These ambulance delays are putting people in danger and they’re adding more pressure to overstretched services.

“People are starting to lose confidence that they’re going to receive the care they need as quickly as they need it. People die or sustain serious injuries due to delays. We know this has a really bad impact on quality of care.”

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The Times - ambulance waiting times
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The Times - GP referrals
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