Just one in 12 Huddersfield patients want their GP surgery to open on Sunday.
Despite Government pressure for a seven-day NHS, the official GP Patient Survey found that just one in 12 patients wanted their local practice to open on the ‘day of rest’.
Of more than 3,500 patients who responded to the survey in Huddersfield, more than three-quarters (76.4%) said their surgery was already open at convenient hours.
Approximately one in 12 (8.3%) of patients said current times were not convenient and that Sunday opening would make it easier to see or speak to someone.
Slaithwaite GP and campaigner, Dr Paul Wilding, said the Government should focus on adequately funding existing GP services rather than pursuing an unwanted policy.
Dr Wilding said: “GPs already provide seven day round-the-clock access via surgeries and the GP out-of-hours service which is accessed via 111.
“We are in crisis nationally due to lack of funding and a critical shortage of GPs.
“Increased funding for existing GP and out-of-hours services now is critical rather than routine Sunday access which the public do not appear to desire or need.”
The greatest demand for Sunday opening came from Dr Ahmed and Partners, Bradford Road.
But even there, fewer than one in five patients (18.2%) wanted the Fartown practice to open on a Sunday.
Other surgeries with a comparatively high – but still low – demand were The Junction Surgery, Moldgreen (17.9%); The Lindley Village Surgery (15.5%) and Westbourne Surgery, Marsh (15%).
And only the minority of patients in North Kirklees (9.9%) and Calderdale (10.2%) wanted Sunday openings.
Last week Prime Minister Theresa May said doctors’ surgeries in England should be open from 8am to 8pm seven days a week – unless there was proof that patients did not want it.
Mrs May has said patients unable to access to GP services are using the country’s already stretched A&Es.
Doctors’ organisations, however, have accused the Prime Minister of scapegoating GPs.
“We have got a very serious problem in that we don’t have the capacity in general practice.
“The crisis in the NHS won’t be solved by scapegoating or deflecting blame onto GPs,” BMA GP committee chairman Dr Chaand Nagpaul told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
The GP patient survey, commissioned by NHS England, gathers responses from hundreds of thousands of patients using GP surgeries across several months.
It is updated twice a year.
Respondents are asked a wide range of questions about their experience of their local practice.
