THOUSANDS of patients across Dorset still do not have access to a GP outside of working hours, new figures show.

Data from the Department for Health has revealed that 12,074 patients across Dorset have no access to a GP at all outside of the normal nine to five working day.

It comes after health secretary Jeremy Hunt last year made a commitment that everyone should have “more convenient access to GP services, including appointments at evening and weekends”, and has set a target date of October 1 for all patients to have access to extended hours.

However, the figures reveal that 66 per cent of patients, or 525,708 people, have full access while 33 per cent, or 262,605, can make an appointment on one or more of the extended periods compared to only two per cent not being able to have access.

This compares with 10 per cent of registered patients across England, or 5,441,834 people, who have no access.

In the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group area, 86 practices with 800,000 registered patients reported their results to the NHS.

Dr Richard Vautrey, British Medical Association GP committee chair, said: “While schemes like this are rolled out and are successful in providing the services they are commissioned to do, we still believe the money invested in such programmes would be better spent improving core GP services.

“We know that patients are frustrated with being unable to get timely appointments during regular working hours, owing to increased demand and unmanageable GP workloads, and therefore it is these services that should be a priority for proper funding.”

Currently, there are 7,153 GP practices in England and just over 6,000 of them offer some access to appointments on Saturdays, Sundays and during extended weekday hours.

In most instances, practices get together to form hubs or federations that provide the service, so patients may not see their usual doctor.

The poorest record is in South Sefton CCG on Merseyside, where no patients have access to extended hours every day but 37 per cent of patients have some extended hours service.