Patients complain of long GP waiting times

The majority of patients are happy with the time that their GP spends with them but some feel they are waiting too long for an appointment, according to new figures.

More than 14.5 million Australians – 82%- visited a GP in the past 12 months, making it the most common health service accessed, according to the latest Patients' Experience Survey 2010-2011 by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (link).

Around 88% of patients said they felt their GP had always or often spent enough time with them.

However, just over 15% who had seen a GP in the past 12 months said they felt they had waited longer than acceptable to get an appointment.

And around 8% admitted that they had delayed or put off seeing a GP because of the cost of the consultation.

Nearly a third of patients managed to see their GP for urgent medical care within four hours of making an appointment, 13% had to wait until the next day and 9% had to wait two or more days.

While only 3% had to travel more than an hour to see one, according to the figures.

Most people who saw a GP last year did so two or more times, with a higher proportion of women than men visiting a doctor and more than three quarters of patients over-75 seeing a doctor more than four times a year.

Meanwhile the figures show more than a quarter of Australians who needed to see a dentist had put it off because of the cost and 12% of patients needing to see a specialist had done the same.