Old, white, rich patients find it easier to get GP appointments than young, poor, black patients

Patients in England from a white ethnic background and those from affluent areas find it easier to get an appointment with their family doctor than those from other ethnic groups or deprived areas, a new report from the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.1

The report also found that older patients were more likely than younger patients to get an appointment and more likely to rate the appointment as convenient.

Overall, auditors found that people’s experience of accessing general practice appointments remained largely positive, with 89% of patients in 2014-15 reporting that they could get an appointment when they had last tried to book one.

But despite this the NAO noted that patients’ satisfaction with access to their GP was slowly declining, with a fifth of patients reporting …