Theresa May has warned GP surgeries to stay open longer and give patients appointments when they want them - or risk losing funding.

The Prime Minister is said to be frustrated by the number of doctor practices that do not offer extended opening hours, saying the failure to do so adds to the pressure on overstretched hospitals and A&E departments.

But doctors have rejected the suggestion, accusing ministers of trying to "scapegoat" GPs rather than addressing chronic under-funding of the NHS.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn weighed in on the crisis, saying the NHS is in a "danger zone" and added: "It worries me, it worries all of you, and frankly, it should worry us all."

The row came as official figures showed that four out of 10 hospitals in England declared a major alert in the first week of the year.


Mrs May wants surgeries in England to open 8am to 8pm, seven days a week, unless they can prove the demand is not there from patients.

A Downing Street source said: "Most GPs do a fantastic job, and have their patients' interests firmly at heart.

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"However, it is increasingly clear that a large number of surgeries are not providing access that patients need - and that patients are suffering as a result because they are then forced to go to A&E to seek care.

"It's also bad for hospitals, who then face additional pressure on their services."

The comments underline increasing exasperation in the Government over GP hours.

The director of acute care for NHS England, Professor Keith Willett, has recently estimated that 30% of the patients attending A&E would be better cared for elsewhere in the system.

Downing Street said that about 17 million patients have benefitted from extended access to GP appointments at evenings and weekends.

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Ministers say they are providing an additional £528m a year for practices by 2020/21 to ensure that the target for providing seven-day opening is met by that date.

The British Medical Association hit back angrily at the Government, saying it should "take responsibility for a crisis of its own making" and address the underlying problem of "chronic under-resourcing of the NHS and social care".

"Much of the pressure on A&E has nothing to do with general practice: it has to do with seriously ill patients for whom seeing a GP would not prevent a hospital admission," said doctor Chaand Nagpaul, the group's GP committee chairman.

"This is not the time to deflect blame or scapegoat overstretched GP services, when the fundamental cause of this crisis is that funding is not keeping up with demand."

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The Royal College of GPs said Mrs May was "misguided" in pushing for seven-day opening "regardless of patient demand or local resources".

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chairman of the Royal College said: "It is not the case that GP surgery routine opening hours are contributing to the pressures our colleagues in A&E departments are currently facing.

“GPs and our teams are also struggling to cope with increasing patient demand without enough investment, and without nearly enough family doctors and practice staff to deal with it - this is a year-long problem for us, not just during the winter.”

Speaking to Sky News, she added: "We need some serious and difficult conversations. How much does this country prioritise having an NHS, having a service that is free at the point of need and universally delivered to all the population?"

And she said: "We are incredibly efficient way of delivering healthcare - but we have got the precipice."

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Dr Ellie Cannon told Sky News: "We been trying to recruit over the last year in my practice. There aren't the doctors, there aren't doctors going into general practice, so you can't just say 'we'll throw money at you'.

"What they need to do is take away all the bureaucracy we have to do... all this ridiculous stuff that we're caught up doing, and give us some time for clinical work."

Mrs May came under fire over the NHS situation in the first PMQs of the year, with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn saying she was "in denial" over the crisis.

And the Red Cross said the NHS faced a "humanitarian crisis" - an assessment Mrs May has called "irresponsible and overblown".

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According to the latest figures, 65 out of 152 trusts issued operational pressure alerts as bed shortages intensified.

NHS hospitals issued 222 serious alerts in six days to say they were experiencing major pressures.

The NHS England data, which covers the period up to last Sunday, said the number of alerts was more than six times higher than the previous six days.