GP appointments should be 15 minutes and no more than 25 a day, BMA says
PATIENTS visiting their GP should be given appointments of at least 15 minutes, the doctors’ “union” warned today.
Doctors union have warned that patients should be given appointments that are at least 15 minutes
But the British Medical Association also called for the number of slots per family doctor to be limited to 25 daily.
The advice is issued in the Safe Working Levels in General Practice report, which looks at ways of cutting surgery workloads.
At present, appointment slots are ten minutes long and result in medics seeing up to 60 patients in a day.
Brian Balmer of the BMA GPs committee executive, said: “We need a new approach that shakes up the way patients get their care from their local GP practice.”
BMA have called for number of slots per family doctor to be limited to 25 daily
Currently appointments are ten minutes long and result in medics seeing up to 60 patients daily
He claimed doctors are “forced to truncate care into an inadequate time frame and deliver an unsafe number of consultations”.
Dr Balmer said members are struggling with budget cuts and an ageing population with “multiple health needs that cannot be properly treated within the current 10-minute recommended consultation.”