One in 20 people who call their GP for help are told to call back on another day, according to a major new poll of patients in England.
And more than one in 10 were told they would need to wait for more than two weeks for care.
Some 5.3% of people were told to “make contact again another day, as the GP practice could not help that day”, according to the new survey by NHS England and the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The proportion who are told their practice could not help that day is highest in north east London where 12.2% of patients were told to call back another day.
The NHS England/ONS survey, which was carried out between January 16 and February 15, also asked participants about their experiences of contacting GP surgeries.
Among those people who tried to contact a GP practice in the past month for themselves or for someone else, nearly half (49.4%) said it was very easy or easy while nearly a third (31.3%) said it was very difficult or difficult.
The proportion finding it very difficult or difficult was highest among 25 to 34-year-olds (40.2%) and lowest among people aged 70 and over (20.4%).
Patients in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland reported the highest proportion of finding it hard to contact their surgery, with 45.8% saying they found it difficult or very difficult.
Among those people who told the survey they had contacted their surgery successfully, 60.9% said they had done so by telephone and speaking to a member of staff, 20.6% did so online through a GP practice website or app, 12.5% said they had done so in person and 4.5% said they had done so using the NHS website or app.
Some 50.6% said they were given an appointment or assessment within two weeks of making contact, 18.3% received what they needed online or by telephone, 11.9% were given an appointment or assessment over two weeks later, while 5.3% were told to make contact again another day as the surgery could not help that day.
A further 2.7% said their next step was to go to a pharmacy while 0.5% said the next thing they did was seek urgent treatment including A&E or 999 services.
Among all respondents who tried to contact a GP practice in the past month for themselves or someone else, 63.7% said their experience of the practice was very good or fairly good while 20.4% said it was very poor or fairly poor.
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