Practices have faced a huge increase in serious complaints in the last year – and also in praise, it has been revealed.

The increase in complaints to the Care Quality Commission reflects the controversy about the switch to phone consultations. The Commission reported that 8,267 patients contacted it to lodge complaints about practices in the first 11 months of last year – compared with 3,00l the previous year, the Sunday Telegraph reported. There was also a near doubling of patients providing reports of good experience – from 804 to 1,462.

Royal College of GPs chair Professor Martin Marshall said: “GPs and our teams were working under intense workload and workforce pressures before Covid, but the pandemic has exacerbated this.The size of the qualified workforce fell by almost 6% between September 2015 and August 2021 while the number of patients has continued to grow meaning that the ratio of patients to GPs has increased by more than 10%. Across the country, general practice teams are working incredibly hard in very difficult circumstances to ensure patients receive good, safe and appropriate care.”

CQC chief inspector of primary medical services Rosie Benneyworth told a recent board meeting: “We are seeing a significant increase in feedback on care for primary medical services. The vast majority of this relates to concerns that we’re seeing about access to care in general practice.”

An NHS spokesperson said: “The latest GP appointment figures show that general practice is working hard to ensure patients get the care they need, with more than 30 million appointments delivered in October and in response to patient feedback we have created a £250m access plan for general practices to improve access for patients and to support GP teams this winter.”