Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent estimate he has made of the number of patients visiting A&E departments after having been unable to make an appointment with their GP.
There are over 300 million consultations in general practice each year. The latest general practitioner (GP) patient survey results show that less than 2% of patients attended a walk-in centre or accident and emergency department because they were unable to get a convenient appointment with their GP at their practice.