Concern lives at risk due to shortage of doctors in our region
Face to face check ups have increased three times faster than the number of GPs in recent years.
There's concern lives are at risk because of a shortage of doctors in Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire.
That's according to East Yorkshire GP, Dr Zoe Norris, who is calling on the government to do do more to tackle what she calls a "GP state of emergency".
It's as new research by the Kings Fund reveals the true extent of the current "crisis" in general practice.
Over the last 5 years face to face consultations have increased three times faster than the number of GPs.
The report also claims that general practice is in a critical condition largely due to lack of data about the pressures facing doctors.
It says health bosses in England are failing to recognise the crisis because the information hasn't been available and that the profession isn't attracting new recruits because of the pressure.
Dr Norris told Viking that at her surgery in Beverley, patients are waiting weeks for an appointment due to a lack of doctors and says it's hugely frustrating for patients:
"It's quite common for it to be 2 to 3 weeks for a routine appointment and it just leads to increase demand all round and it's awful for patients to feel that they can't see a doctor when they need to and it's awful for us knowing that we can't treat our patients.
"The current situation is unsafe and it feels like we have been banging this drum for a number of years and no-one is listening to us and patient care has been suffering as a result and with the best will in the world, your GP can only work so many hours in a day and we can only see so many patients safely and we get tired just like every other person does when they are at work.
"We need the government to listen to us, this is a problem and it is a problem now and it is affecting patient care and it is affecting lives and this needs to be taken seriously.
"As patients are often waiting weeks for an appointment, it means they're either booking them early and we see them before we can do a lot for them or they've left things and by the time we see them they're really sick and they are the patients we need to be giving good access to but we can't at the moment as there aren't enough of us.
"The system is just broken and the way general practice is working at the moment is broken and I think patients and GPs realise that. It's just disheartening to then see headlines promising millions of pounds invested, hundreds and thousands more GPs and actually that doesn't make any difference on the ground to my patient who needs to see me tomorrow and can't.
"We have got a real issue with recruiting GPs and retaining the current GPs we have. There is a lot about ambitious targets about how the government and NHS are going to be training thousands more GPs but that takes time and what we actually need is the government and NHS England working with the current workforce that we have to free GPs up so that we can be seeing more patients."