The latest data from NHS England shows that 20% of residents were unable to get an appointment to see or speak to a GP or even a nurse the last time they tried.
Meanwhile, in the past year nearly 1.7 million GP appointments in the South East have been a month late.
In June alone, 25,730 appointments took place a month late in the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes health region.
Labor councilors attribute the continuing problems to more than a decade of government “mismanagement”.
They say when the Tories came into government in 2010 they scrapped the guarantee of a 48-hour GP appointment.
And since then, public satisfaction with GP services has fallen by 39 percentage points, from 77% last year in the Labor government to just 38% today. This is the lowest level since the start of the survey in 1983.
Labor Councilor Emily Darlington, Cabinet Member for Healthy Communities and Labor Parliamentary candidate for MK South, said:
“The government has admitted it is not delivering on its overt commitment to recruit more GPs. The Conservatives have over-promised and broken, and local families are hurting. »
Residents regularly contacted their neighborhood councilors to inform them of the difficulties in accessing an appointment with the general practitioner.
This has led Milton Keynes City Council to commit to determining whether access to GP services is appropriate and the local authority will soon advise public health partners on improvements.
Labor adviser Shanika Mahendran will lead a group of advisers who will study access for both general practitioners and dentists:
“Families in Milton Keynes find it almost impossible to get an appointment with a GP or dentist when they need one. This means that diseases go undiagnosed and untreated, and people suffer when they shouldn’t have to. As part of our advice plan, we are committed to looking at these struggles at the local level, but the government must also step in to prevent things from getting worse.
NHS data also reveals that 21% of appointments in Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes are not face-to-face.
Cllr Darlington said: “We need more GPs, but the Tories have once again overpromised and underdelivered.”
