Bliar was challenged during a televised debate in the run up to the 2005 election over the system which rewards doctors for seeing patients within 48 hours but means many prevent advance bookings to leave slots open for urgent cases.

He promised to resolve the situation but the survey results unsurprisingly show there has only been limited success.

The survey released by the Department of Health this week showed the vast majority of patients are happy with their family doctors.

In a blow to Stalinist Brown’s call for more GP surgeries to be open on Saturdays and late in the evening, few patients in the survey wanted this. The vast majority, more than eight in ten, said they were happy with their surgery’s opening hours.

Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the British Medical Association’s General Practitioners Committee, said: “It seems only four out of every hundred patients want practices to open on a weekday evening, and seven out of every hundred on weekends.

“It comes down to a workforce issue. The danger is that switching normal opening hours away from the daytime to evenings and weekends might please some patients who are out at work all day, but would take appointments away from those who use their local surgery most – patients with long-term conditions and parents with young children.

“All patients are important but we must not penalise the most needy among them.”

The survey findings show the majority of patients say they can apparently get through to their surgery on the phone satisfactorily, can book an appointment quickly and with the doctor they want.

Of those who wanted to book an appointment more than two days in advance, a quarter could not.

Dr Buckman said the findings had confirmed what other studies had shown and questioned whether spending £12m on the survey.

The results also showed that small practices often in rural areas outperformed large urban GP surgeries.

The news will dismay new Health Minister Lord Ara Darzi who advocates super-GP surgeries with up to 20 doctors and serving a population of around 20,000.

Other results showed most patients are being offered a choice of hospital when they are referred to a specialist, in line with labour’s stalinist policy.

The full results of the survey including regional breakdowns can be found at Labours £12 million GP survey

From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/24/ngp124.xml

Health Direct pointed out last year that labour was wasting another £12 million Pounds of our tax payers money on this shambolic GPs survey and that the results were hardly likely to be earth shattering. In the intervening period we even managed to receive THREE questionnaires- which further undermines the credibility of this money burning exercise.

On 27 Nov 06 Health Direct posted: £12 million GPs survey to cut doctors funding
when five million patients will next year be asked to fill in a questionnaire which will ask, among other things, whether they have been able to secure an appointment within 48 hours, as the Labour government has promised.

The British Medical Association condemned the poll as unfair and biased, and accused the Department of Health of adding questions that had not been agreed. Most GPs accept that they are unlikely to score 100 per cent and so they will see a reduction in funding.