GP leaders have challenged government claims that doctor numbers have improved – as new appointments data showed a worrying drop in activity in primary care.

Health ministers claimed a 500 increase in GP numbers last week – but the Royal College of GPs said there was “simply not enough” doctors.

The increase in doctors in general practice continues to be driven by increased trainee numbers – while over the last year the number of fully qualified GPs has fallen by 500, according to the NHS England data.

New data published yesterday, by NHS England, showed just 24.2 million general practice appointments in April compared with 31.5 million in March. Numbers normally fall in April, partly because of the Easter holidays. But while in March practices delivered nearly two million more appointments than a year earlier, in April the number is estimated as being just 210,000 more than the previous year.

This was accompanied by a significant reduction in same day appointments.

Just 1,896,108 patients were seen on the day they requested an appointment in April compared with 2,088,881 in April last year. 70% of appointments were face to face compared with 62.9% a year earlier.

The workforce data shows an increase of 204 practice nurses, equivalent to 1.2%, and an increase of 918 in other direct patient care staff in a year.

In Scotland, data for March shows a reduction in practice contacts – with 1,688,309 direct contacts in March this year compared with 1,840,658 a year earlier.

RCGP chair Professor Kamila Hawthorne said: “GPs and our teams are working incredibly hard to deliver safe, timely and appropriate care for our patients, in the face of unsustainable workforce and workload pressures. We are delivering millions more appointments than before the pandemic, with almost half offered on the day of booking – but with 898 fewer fully qualified, full-time equivalent GPs than we did in 2019. In some areas, GPs are now responsible for more than 2,500 patients. We share our patients’ frustration when they can’t access our care – this is not the fault of hard-working GP teams, but due to decades of underfunding and poor workforce planning. We simply do not have enough GPs or other members of the practice team to meet patient demand that is growing in both volume and complexity.”

She added: “It is not too late to turn this dire situation around. The long-awaited NHS workforce plan is the opportunity to make sure general practice if fit for the future. We need to see a bold new plan from the Government that goes beyond the target of 6,000 more GPs it pledged in its election manifesto, including revitalised recruitment and retention schemes. The bottom line is, we need thousands more GPs – and the numbers are going in the wrong direction.”

The Government says there are now 2,000 more doctors working in general practice than in 2019.

Last week Health Secretary Steve Barclay said: “We continue to make progress on strengthening the NHS and primary care workforce. We have published a Primary Care Recovery Plan setting out how we will support general practice to recover from the pandemic and will soon publish a long term workforce plan focused on recruiting and retraining more staff – to help tackle the backlogs and improve patient care.”