Patients are waiting more than a week for GP appointments, despite a slight improvement compared with the same period last year.

Those who manage to book an appointment are being seen a day sooner on average, but the figures do not reflect the time it takes to secure a booking or the challenges patients face when trying to make one.

Health Minister Claire Christian gave the figures at this week’s House of Keys sitting in response to a question from Arbory, Castletown and Malew MHK Jason Moorhouse about average waiting times to see a GP and their impact on the Emergency Department (ED).

Ms Christian said waiting times vary between practices, as they operate under different clinical models depending on patient demand and staffing levels.

She said: ‘Currently, the average waiting time across all practices to attend a GP appointment is 7.4 days. This is the average number of days between the patient booking and attending the appointment, which has reduced from 8.4 days as of September 30, 2024.

‘On another positive note, across all 11 GP practices, 35.7% of GP appointments occurred on the same day they were booked, and a further 36.3% occurred by day seven.’

That means more than 70% of appointments in September this year were delivered within seven days of booking.

Ms Christian acknowledged that longer waits for GP appointments can increase demand on the ED but added: ‘GP access has improved modestly while the four-hour performance measure at ED remains at 63%.’

She said ED waiting times are driven by several factors, including hospital bed capacity and rising demand, and are ‘more influenced by hospital capacity and constraints than GP access’.

The minister told the Keys: ‘Over the last year, Manx Care has developed services to increase options for residents to access primary care and to reduce footfall at the ED for those who need to be treated in that setting.’

She said patient education campaigns were helping direct people with minor illnesses to community services, while virtual GP sessions piloted in the north of the island had provided an additional 44 appointments in September 2025.

Onchan MHK Rob Callister questioned the figures, saying constituents had told him they were waiting ‘two or three weeks’ for appointments and called for the data to be made publicly available.

Ms Christian said the figures were based on the time between booking and attending appointments, not the time spent trying to make a booking, ‘which probably extends that time’. She said she would circulate the full data to members when available.

Several MHKs asked for a breakdown of waiting times and details of the longest delays, but Ms Christian said she did not have that information to hand at the sitting.

Share your thoughts on this story by emailing [email protected] for potential publication in our letters page. Please include your name, address, and phone number for verification. We won’t print phone numbers or full addresses, and anonymity requests will be respected where possible. Join the conversation!