GP waiting times don't tell the whole story

The Shadow Minister for Care and Older People - Liz Kendall - yesterday gave a speech in which she highlighted the issue of access to GP services:

"now two thirds of patients say they can't see their doctor within two days and one in six have to wait more than a week"

Neither claim actually reflects the number of people who were unable to get an appointment. In both cases patients were asked how long it took them to access services, not whether they where unable to access them any sooner.

The two claims are from different sources.

As we've factchecked previously, the two thirds figure comes from a survey of members and online supporters of the Patients Association, so the extent to which its findings are representative of patients in general is unclear.

The one in six figure comes from the GP Patient Survey, which does use a representative sample of patients. 16% of patients who were able to get an appointment or speak to someone waited a week or more to do so. That's not including patients who weren't even able to get an appointment last time they tried - about 11% of all patients said they couldn't get one.