The number of people having to wait at least a week to see their GP rose by 500,000 last year, official figures show.
About 14.2 million patients had to wait a week or did not get an appointment at all the last time they tried to see their doctor in 2015, compared with 13.8 million the year before, research from the House of Commons library found.
Many of the UK’s 9,770 GP surgeries are struggling to cope with a growing and ageing population and as pressures have risen, the number of GPs has not kept pace, with an increasing number opting for early retirement. That has coincided with a failure to attract enough graduate medics into choosing general practice as a career.
Full story in The Guardian 18 April 2016