North central London practice has more patients per GP than almost anywhere else in England

A GP practice in north central London has more patients per doctor than almost anywhere else in the country, figures reveal.

The British Medical Association said large disparities in GP to patient ratios throughout England are "wholly unacceptable" and called on the Government to address the longstanding issues.

NHS Digital figures show 1,745,153 patients were registered at GP practices in the NHS North Central London CCG area at the end of January – along with the equivalent of 924 full-time GPs.

This means if the patients were equally spread, each GP would be dealing with an average of 1,889 patients – but the figures vary drastically across the 181 practices which were recorded as having patients and any FTE practitioners.

With 20,369 patients per GP, Staunton Group Practice has one of the worst GP-patient ratios in England, though the surgery only had a GP for 64% of the hours of one full-time role.

It fared better than a practice in Coventry and Warwickshire, which had 41,000 patients per GP.

It was followed by Latymer Road Surgery (14,272) and Hornsey Park Surgery (9,354).

At the other end of the scale nationally, a surgery in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin has just 96 patients per GP.

Dr Kieran Sharrock, BMA England GP committee deputy chairman, said: “This data shows worryingly large disparities in GP to patient ratios across the country and it is wholly unacceptable that patients should have to experience such variations in access to care.

“The Government has failed to address the longstanding recruitment and retention issues in general practice and we now have a very unsustainable and unsafe situation where fewer GPs are being tasked with the responsibility of caring for significantly more patients."

Dr Sharrock said the Government has not paid enough attention to the primary care backlog and should provide "urgent and substantial support" to enable high quality care.

Meanwhile, the north central London practices with the lowest number of patients per GP are Camden Health Improvement Practice (397), The Regents Park Practice (872) and Prince Of Wales Group Surgery (961).

The Royal College of GPs said that between September 2015 and December 2021 the number of patients per GP increased by 10%, the number of fully qualified, full-time equivalent GPs fell by 5% and the population grew by 4%.

Professor Martin Marshall, chairman of the RCGP, said some regions are affected worse than others as they face greater difficulties recruiting new GPs.

GP-patient ratios are highest in London (1,998 per GP on average) and lowest in the North West (1,601).

Professor Marshall added: "GPs want to be able to consistently give their patients the care they deserve, no matter where they live.

"But the increased workload expected of GPs and their teams while their numbers fail to increase at the necessary pace, is unsustainable."

Along with the hiring of more GPs, he said plans are also needed to keep experienced GPs in the workforce for longer.

The Department of Health and Social Care said there were over 1,600 more FTE doctors in December 2021 than two years previously, with a record-breaking number starting training last year.

A spokeswoman added: “We have invested £520 million to improve access and expand GP capacity during the pandemic."