Weather, the World Cup and public holidays impact on the numbers of patients booking GP appointments

Britons book more GP appointments when it is cold and rainy – but they make fewer visits when it is sunny or snowing, research shows.

Scientists also found patients booked fewer appointments on days last summer that the England football team played in the World Cup.

Spikes in attendances also occur after public holidays and major health stories in the media, particularly about cancer. 

The knowledge could help GP surgeries manage staff more efficiently amid the NHS staffing crisis, experts say.

The study comes amid record long waiting times for appointments, with the average patient in England going two weeks before they are seen.

Clarendon Lodge Medical Practice in Leamington Spa, which conducted the study, used its data to manage rotas around busy periods.

The practice has reduced its locum costs by more than £25,000 in one year, over the period of September 2018 to August last year. 

Demand for GP appointments dropped by 16 per cent when England were playing in the World Cup in 2018. Pictured, Harry Kane, Ben Chilwell and Jadon Sancho during the UEFA Euro 2020 qualifier on November 14

The study used admissions figures from Clarendon Lodge between September 2017 and the same month the following year.

It also took into account Met Office weather data, major health stories and sporting dates from the BBC website.

The surgery, which has around 13,500 patients, reported that 44,885 appointments were booked during the study period – an average of 180 per day.

But on the days of World Cup football matches, there was a significant decrease in demand. Appointments fell by five per cent on days when England was not playing, and 16 per cent when it was.

This suggested people ‘will prioritise watching the football game over arranging a GP appointment’, the researchers said. 

No such link was found for events such as the Tour de France or international cricket.

Snowy weather saw a 16 per cent reduction in demand, which the authors suggest may have been due to difficulties in reaching the surgery.

Dr Hussain Al-Zubaidi, one of the researchers, told the Press Association: ‘Having the same staff meeting different demand just doesn’t work.

‘And often that’s the case, in a lot of GP surgeries, they have got the same team managing a very different workload day to day, and that leads to the problems we are having with recruitment.’

Dr Al-Zubaidi said the data allows the surgery to predict days that are busier, call in more locums, and prevent strain on staff. 

It also helps them avoid calling in locums when they think it will potentially be busy only for it to be a waste because they are not needed.  

‘So we are trying to prevent waste essentially,’ Dr Al-Zubaidi said.

The study also found that prominent news stories ‘greatly affected’ the number of appointments booked, particularly reports relating to cancer, mental health, paediatrics and flu.

On days cancer stories were published, uptake increased by nine per cent.

The doctors wrote: ‘Articles relating to cancer, in particular, showed marked spikes in patient appointment demand, potentially highlighting specific symptoms that the patient was either unaware of or overlooking.

‘Furthermore, they often discuss cases where the cancer was missed or mistreated and often request the patient to contact their GP if they had any concerns, which may have contributed to the increased demand observed.’ 

The practice is now using the data to predict when demand for services is likely to peak or when quieter days are likely.

Clarendon Lodge Medical Practice in Leamington Spa (pictured), which conducted the study, used its data to manage rotas around busy periods. The practice has reduced its locum costs by more than £25,000 in one year, over the period of September 2018 to August last year

They adjust staffing levels according to predicted demand and schedule resource-heavy activities, such as staff meetings, six-week baby checks, steroid injections and minor operations, for quieter days. 

Clarendon Lodge Medical Practice is one of five to ten per cent of practices that are part of the GP Direct scheme.

It sees patients given same-day telephone consultations followed by appointments in person if necessary later that day, rather than pre-booked slots.

The authors wrote: ‘Forecasting tools have been grossly underused to assist GP practices to predict future demand.’

Previous international research has shown a link between external events and emergency department admissions but the link to primary care demand had not been explored. 

The authors said: ‘Although forecasting tools based on weather projections are being utilised to manage health on a national level, there is currently little to no exposure on a local level.

‘With the ever-increasing threat of climate change, understanding how weather impacts patient demand will be crucial to prepare primary care for the future.’

Professor Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of GPs (RCGPs), said predicting demand on any given day may be difficult.

He said: ‘Understanding trends in demand is vital in order to plan when and where resources are needed most, not just in general practice but right across the NHS, but they are not always easy to predict.

‘Sporting events, for example, are infrequent and as this research shows can have a variable impact – and realistically, GPs can only ever really plan for the impact of news stories after they are in the public domain. But even the weather is becoming more unpredictable.’

He added: ‘Reliable forecasting tools would be useful – and it’s interesting to see how this practice is taking this forward – but traditionally, we haven’t had the same access to accurate data as secondary care colleagues, which has made planning difficult.’

GP surgeries are facing an unprecedented demand for appointments due to the growing and ageing population as well as the impact of obesity-driven diseases such as type 2 diabetes.   

At the same time, staff numbers have dwindled. The number of fully qualified full-time family doctors has plummeted by six per cent in four years.

There are now just 26,958 full-time qualified GPs, a drop from 28,631 in 2015. This fall of nearly 1,700 has come despite a pledge by then prime minister David Cameron five years ago for an extra 5,000 GPs. 

Surgeries are increasingly using tactics to reduce the number of patients coming through the door, such as quizzing patients about their illnesses on the phone to decide whether they are sick enough to see a doctor. 

The Daily Mail commissioned a survey of 974 GPs and practice managers in December and found 59 per cent currently use triage schemes. Many have introduced them within the last two years. 

Average waiting times to see a GP have breached two weeks for the first time on record in August, a poll of GPs revealed.

The average wait for a routine GP appointment in England has increased by two days in the past two years to 14.8 days.