GP waiting times record highs – Is it time to switch to online pharmacies?
You may have thought GP waiting times have felt longer, but now we know for a fact. The average wait for a routine GP appointment is now more than two weeks, for the first time ever according to Pulse’s annual survey of waiting times.
This follows on from recent news that there was a 15% increase in month-long waits for GP appointments, according to the BMA.
Over the last few years the average appointment time has been steadily increasing:
2019: 14.8 days
2018: 13.9 days
2017: 12.8 days
2016: 12.8 days
This begs the questions what can patients do if they can’t wait for their treatment? Thankfully many pharmacies are moving online. By moving online this is helping to cut down waiting times and allow patients to receive their medications quickly and easily.
My Pharmacy is an NHS trusted online pharmacy that offers free online consultations for treatments with next day delivery on all prescription products. Based on Queen St, Great Harwood, Blackburn – My Pharmacy has been an established pharmacy for over 12 years. After seeing the need to cut patient wait times and deliver medication to those who may be too unwell to go into the pharmacy, www.mypharmacy.co.uk was set up to overcome this hurdle.
Not all illnesses can be treated by online pharmacies, and certainly, there are those who will still need to visit a GP. However, it is important to think before heading down to the GP “Is this something I can order online?”. With an increasingly wide range of treatments being made available online more and more people are finding they no longer need to head down to the doctors every time they’re ill and instead can order online, saving both time and money in the process. It is particularly important to note that recurring orders for prescriptions can also be completed online so you no longer need to queue up each month at the pharmacy to receive your treatments, instead, your treatments can be delivered to your door.
With this news of rising GP waiting times, we couldn’t be more certain that online pharmacies are a much-needed part of modern healthcare in the UK. With more and more people switching to online pharmacies we hope to see GP waiting times drop and free up the wait for those who need to see their GP.
