GPs across Blackburn with Darwen have seen their workload increase by 15 per cent in a year.

Dr Malcolm Ridgway told members of the Blackburn with Darwen Clinical Commissioning Group there had been a 7.9 per cent increase in appointments, combined with an 8 per cent increase in length of appointments over a twelve-month period.

Figures brought before the meeting showed there were 45,313 more GP appointments in 2017 than 2016.

Appointments per month spiked in October last year, when there were 63,456.

That is compared to 55,781 in October 2016 and 53,415 in October 2015.

472 fewer appointments were held in Christmas week than the week before Christmas, though there were 150 more appointments than in the same week for 2016.

Dr Ridgway said: “Primary care activity has gone up quite a fair amount and that should be reflected in funding going that way rather than always to the hospital.

“Clearly more work is going on in general practice.

“You are starting to get a 15 per cent increase in workload in one year.

“Overall, emergency department attendance is going down but people who are going in are there for longer.

“I think that shows what we are doing in primary care is having the effect we want.

“Over Christmas there is a dip in activity, particularly over the bank holiday period. I know from my own experience why that is - you try to frontload your work and demand drops off the day or two before Christmas.

“You get a drop in referrals to outpatients as well. You can see we do get a drop off in activity at various times of the year and that is picked up in the main by the out of hours service so you get a corresponding spike there.

”For A&E, you will notice no change in activity over the Christmas period. It goes up and down depending on time of year.

“Although there is a reduction in demand [for GP appointments] over Christmas, it is not reflected in an increase in A&E attendances.”