Number of available GP appointments rises in Milton Keynes - but fewer are face-to-face
Health bosses say the number of GP appointments offered in MK has risen by more than 7 per cent – although fewer of them are face-to-face consultations.
New information published by NHS England shows that practices in the area served by NHS Central East Integrated Care Board – Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes – offered more than 5,480,000 appointments between May and July 2026.
This is an increase of over 396,000 (7.8%) compared with the same period a year earlier.
On the average weekday, more than 85,600 people had an appointment with a healthcare professional in general practice. With over 3.5 million people registered with a GP in the ICB area, this means that each day, one in every 41 registered patients booked a consultation at a general practice, compared with one in 45 a year earlier.
Some 47.2% of appointments were booked for the same day, compared with 45.1% a year earlier.
The figures also reveal that 59.6% of primary care appointments were face-to-face, compared with 63.9% over the same period in 2025.
Unfortunately, on the average weekday, 2,934 (3.4%) people did not attend their booked primary care appointment, higher than the 3.3% who did so in the same period in 2025.
Maria Wogan, Executive Director of Neighbourhood Health, Place and Partnerships at NHS Central East Integrated Care Board, said: “We know there’s more to do, but local residents already know that NHS staff are working incredibly hard to offer more appointments in order to meet their needs.
"Increasingly the practice workload can be spread among different clinical roles: for example, a pharmacist will carry out medication reviews, and a practice nurse or paramedic may help patients manage long-term conditions such as asthma or diabetes.
“This allows your practice to make the best use of all their staff’s expertise and time, and it frees up your GP to deal with patients who need more complex care.
“Patients can help their general practice by keeping their appointments, or cancelling them if they’re no longer needed. Every time a patient fails to keep an appointment, that’s a slot which could have been offered to someone else, so please make sure you cancel in good time if you don’t need to be seen.”