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Monday 12 August 2019. Registered as a newspaper at
the Post Office ISSN 0261-3077.News and Sport
Putin began by
embracing the west,
now he wants revenge
Angus Roxburgh
Page 1It’s not extreme to
want to leave the EU on 31
October, come what may
Gisela Stuart
Page 4‘Maximum pressure’
How Donald Trump’s
foreign policy is yielding
minimum results
Page 29‘They love carrots now’
How can parents tackle
childhood obesity without
giving children a complex?
Page 4Lampard’s tough start
Bad day for new Chelsea
manager as Manchester
United score four
Page 52A victim of bitter Britain
Jade Goody lives on as a
lesson in public prejudice,
says Suzanne Moore
Page 11Weather
Page 34Cartoon
Journal, page 5Cryptic crossword
Back of JournalQuick crossword
Back of GNEWSPAPERS
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dingtart
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sterHaroon SiddiqueThe average wait for a routine GP
appointment in the UK has exceeded
more than two weeks for the fi rst
time , according to an annual survey
of doctors.
The poll, for Pulse , found the aver-
age waiting time was almost 15 days.
More than one in fi ve of the 901 GPs
who responded said the wait for a
routine appointment exceeded three
weeks, while more than one in 20 said
it was more than four weeks.
In response, NHS England said the
fi ndings did not chime with offi cial
statistics.
Commenting on the fi ndings, Prof
Helen Stokes-Lampard, the chair of
the Royal College of GPs (RCGP), said:
“Our patients should be able to see a GP
when they need to – and the fact that
this is becoming increasingly diffi cult
is frustrating for GPs and our teams, as
we know it is for them .”
She added: “People are waiting too
long for routine appointments, and
the concern is that non-serious con-
ditions might deteriorate, or patients
give up trying to see the GP and we
miss signs of serious illness early
when it could be dealt with simply andRichard Partington
Economics correspondentMore public holidays and higher wages
could boost the economy by making it
more productive as the UK struggles to
improve its economic effi ciency with
Brexit looming and after a decade of
faltering gains, a report claims.
The New Economics Foundation
is urging ministers to create a new
external body to provide guidance on
raising the number of public holidays.
After taking into account statutory
leave, UK employees have among the
fewest paid days off from work in the
EU. The minimum amount is 28 days,
compared with 30 to 40 days else-
where in Europe.
The NEF report said that driving
up the spending power of consum-
ers would give companies more of
an incentive to boost their produc-
tivity. When there is greater demand
for their goods and services, fi rms are
more likely to respond by investing in
their operations, it said.
Labour productivity – a key meas-
urement of hourly economic output- has failed to grow at the rates seen
before the fi nancial crisis. Boosting
productivity is an important target for
the government through its industrial
strategy as faster productivity growth
helps lift pay and living standards.
Productivity grew by about 2% per
year in the four decades leading up
to the fi nancial crisis, but has slowed
to about 0.7%. Economists fear that
Brexit could compound the problem,
as the uncertainty has pushed UK com-
panies to pause spending plans that
could boost their effi ciency.
NEF said the government should
drive up the minimum wage faster
than planned and raise spending on
public services by as much as £32bn
a year by the mid 2020s to reverse the
impact of austerity. Workers should
also be given a national weekly allow-
ance worth £2,500 a year , in place of
the tax-free personal allowance.
Alfi e Stirling, head of economics
at NEF, said government policy had
tended to focus on boosting the supply
side of the economy – interventions
designed to alter the way companies
make goods and deliver services – to
boost productivity.
“It hasn’t worked. Average pro-
ductivity, wages and living standards
have experienced their worst decade
in almost two centuries,” he said.
John McDonnell, the shadow chan-
cellor, said: “This important analysis
from NEF shows only an ambitious
plan for economic transformation, of
the kind Labour proposes, will lift the
UK out of the productivity crisis that
the Tories have left us in.”more cost-eff ectively in primary care.”
Promises of investment and increased
staff needed to be delivered “urgently
and in full”.
In 2015, the government pledged
to expand the workforce of fam-
ily doctors by 5,000 by 2020 but it
has struggled to deliver. NHS Digital
fi gures show there were 28,697 fully
qualifi ed, full-time equivalent GPspractising in England in March, down
441 from a year previously.
The Pulse survey, published today ,
found more than three in 10 GPs said
the average waiting time was between
two and three weeks, with only two in
10 saying it was less than a week.
One GP who recorded a four- to
fi ve-week waiting list said: “Patient
demand continues to soar with
higher expectations despite dreadful
government funding. MPs have a lot
to answer for.”
Doctors’ leaders have long
complained that GPs are overworked
and stressed , leading more to leave
the profession or reduce their hours ,
which exacerbates the problem.
The chair of the British Medical
Association’s GPs committee,
Dr Richard Vautrey, said: “GPs’ No
priority is treating their patients and
they work incredibly hard to do so,
often outside of their contracted hours
in practices that are understaff ed.
“What is clear however, is that
despite the best eff orts of practices,
patient demand is continuing to grow
and with it the rise in the number of
those with increasingly complex and
chronic conditions where longer and
multiple appointments are necessary.”
Referencing fi gures for England for
June alone , an NHS spokesman said:
“As the latest offi cial fi gures show,
around half of all GP appointments are
booked and taken on the same day, or
within 24 hours, and many patients
who require non-urgent appointments
do so at times to suit them or when
required for routine follow-ups.”
NHS England’s own patient survey
results last month showed that people
were fi nding it increasingly diffi cult to
get a GP appointment.Average wait for routine
GP appointment passes
two weeks for fi rst time
More holidays
and better pay
would boost
productivity,
says thinktank
Source: Pulse survey. Excludes 'don't knows'.
The number of respondents ranged from 728-In 2019, respondents said patients
had to wait an average of 14.8 days
for a non-urgent GP appointment2016 2017 2018 201912.
days12.8 13.14.28,
The number of fully qualifi ed,
full-time equivalent GPs practising
in England in March▲ People in Britain have among the
fewest paid days off from work of all
employees in Europe
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