More than a million patients cannot get through to GP despite Labour family doctor pledge

However, analysis of the latest Office for National Statistics survey on health care by the Liberal Democrats has revealed the problems besetting GPs.

This found that in just one month in England, 4.8 million people who tried to reach their GP could not make contact on the same day.

This accounts for close to a quarter of all people who tried.

Of these, 2.2m patients had to wait several days to make contact, while more than 1.1m were completely unable to access their NHS GP.

Even when people successfully secured an appointment, less than half received a face-to-face appointment, as promised by Labour, and more than 100,000 patients were told to manage their issue themselves.

This comes in conjunction with NHS data, which shows more people are going to A&E with minor ailments like coughs, headaches and hiccups.

Lib Dem spokesperson for hospitals, Jess Brown-Fuller, said: “The crisis in NHS primary care cannot be allowed to continue. Millions of people are being forced to wait in pain for weeks just to get a GP appointment.

“The government must act urgently to ensure patients can see their GP when they need to. The mistakes of the previous Conservative government, which ran our health service into the ground, must not be repeated.

“The lack of GP appointments is leading to unnecessary hospital admissions, putting more strain on A&E and costing the NHS even more money.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson previously said the government had inherited “a broken NHS, with general practice being neglected for years”.

“We’re determined to work with the NHS to fix the front door of our health service and ensure everyone can access GP services,” they added.

In the Budget, Rachel Reeves announced £22.6 billion for the NHS, while Health Secretary Wes Streeting has promised to hire an extra thousand GPs by April.

The spokesperson added that an extra £311m has been put into the GP contract this year.