REVEALED: Swindon GP surgeries with most and least patients

Fifteen of Swindon’s 22 surgeries have a higher number of patients registered per full-time equivalent (FTE) doctor than the local average across the Clinical Commissioning Group area, which includes Swindon, Bath, North East Somerset and Wiltshire. 

It comes as the British Medical Association condemned the “wholly unacceptable” disparities in GP to patient ratios throughout England and criticised the government’s “longstanding recruitment and retention issues” in general practice.

Scroll to the bottom to see how your GP surgery compares.

If patients were equally spread out across Swindon’s CCG region, each FTE GP would be dealing with an average of 1,648 patients, according to data from January 31.

Sparcells Surgery and Eldene Surgery have two of the worst ratios across the region with 6,863 patients per FTE GP and 6,721 patients for every FTE GP respectively - more than four times the average.

Sparcells has 10,341 patients registered but only 1.507 FTE GPs and the data shows Eldene Surgery has 7,993 patients with 1.189 FTE doctors.

But the CCG says the figures do not take advanced care practitioners (ACPs) and paramedics into account.

A spokesman said: “All clinicians, including ACPs and paramedics, are what NHS England consider when looking at patient to clinician ratio.”

The CCG and Eldene Surgery have also questioned the accuracy of NHS Digital’s figures as they say the practice has two full-time GPs and two-and-a-half part-time GPs shared with the sister practice. Eldene also has four full-time ACPs and two full-time paramedics.

A CCG spokesman added: “Eldene’s appointment lists are not oversubscribed, with patients being able to receive appropriate appointments without long delays (within 4 days for non-urgent appointments and on-the-day for urgent).

“They have not received any complaints over the last 2 years with regards to accessing services – in fact their latest Friends & Family Test had a 98.1% positive result.”

In Swindon, Kingswood Surgery has the best ratio and is one of only six Swindon practices below the CCG average. For the surgery’s 10,801 registered patients, there are 11.973 FTE GPs. This means each FTE GP at Kingswood deals with 902 patients. 

BMA England GP committee deputy chairman Dr Kieran Sharrock said: “This data shows worryingly large disparities in GP to patient ratios across the country and it is wholly unacceptable that patients should have to experience such variations in access to care.

“The government has failed to address the longstanding recruitment and retention issues in general practice and we now have a very unsustainable and unsafe situation where fewer GPs are being tasked with the responsibility of caring for significantly more patients."

The Royal College of GPs said that between September 2015 and December 2021 the number of patients per GP increased by 10% but the number of fully qualified, full-time equivalent GPs fell by 5%.

But the Department of Health and Social Care said there were over 1,600 more FTE doctors in December 2021 than two years previously.

A spokeswoman added: “We have invested £520 million to improve access and expand GP capacity during the pandemic."

The full-time equivalent data does not just include full-time GPs; it is a standardised measure of the workload of a GP.

An explanation of the data on NHS Digital states:  “Using FTE, we can convert part-time and additional working hours into an equivalent number of full-time staff. 

“For example, an individual working 37.5 hours would be classed as 1.0 FTE while a colleague working 30 hours would be 0.8 FTE.”

Here are the full numbers for each surgery in Swindon:

Sparcells Surgery: 10,341 patients/ 1.507 FTE GPs (6,863 patients per FTE GP)

Eldene Surgery: 7,993 patients/ 1.189 FTE GPs (6,721 patients per FTE GP)

Park Lane Practice: 7,042 patients/, 1.77 FTE GPs (3,971 patients per FTE GP)

Whalebridge Practice: 11,779 patients/ 3.84 FTE GPs (3,067 patients per FTE GP)

Victoria Cross Surgery: 9,458 patients /  3.45 FTE GPs (2,739 patients per FTE GP)

Phoenix Surgery: 4,460 patients / 1.8 FTE GPs  (2,478 patients per FTE GP)

New Court Surgery: 10,127 patients / 4.27 FTE GPs (2,374 patients per FTE GP)

Ridge Green Medical Practice: 11,253 patients /  4.91 FTE GPs (2,291 patients per FTE GP)

Old Town Surgery: 9,015 patients / 4.25 FTE GPs (2,120 patients per FTE GP)

Westrop Medical Practice: 29,809 patients / 13.753 FTE GPs (2,167 patients per FTE GP)

Merchiston Surgery: 13,892 patients / 7.787 FTE GPs (1,784 patients per FTE GP)

Abbey Meads Medical Practice: 18,309 patients / 10.578 FTE GPs (1,731 patients per FTE GP)

Purton Surgery: 11,223 patients / 6.53 FTE GPs (1,718 patients per FTE GP)

The Lawn Medical Centre: 8,264 patients/ 4.96 FTE GPs (1,666 patients per FTE GP)

Ashington House Surgery: 10,442 patients / 6.21 FTE GPs (1,681 patients per FTE GP)

Tinkers Lane Surgery: 8,366 patients / 5.41 FTE GPs (1,545 patients per FTE GP)

North Swindon Practice: 16,590 patients / 11.04 FTE GPs (1,503 patients per FTE GP)

Priory Road Medical Centre: 8,725 patients / 5.81 FTE GPs (1,501 patients per FTE GP)

Hawthorn Medical Centre: 12,938 patients / 8.8 FTE GPs (1,470 patients per FTE GP)

Moredon Medical Centre: 12,271 patients /  9.14 FTE GPs (1,342 patients per FTE GP)

Ridgeway View Family Practice: 14,149 patients / 10.65 FTE GPs (1,329 patients per FTE GP)

Kingswood Surgery: 10,801 patients / 11.97 FTE GPs (902 patients per FTE GP)