BLACKBURN WITH DARWEN patients are bucking the national trend in making the most of evening and weekend GP appointments.

Research by GP news magazine Pulse found around a quarter of evening and weekend GP appointments are going unfilled in England.

But in Blackburn with Darwen, less than 10 per cent of evening and weekend appointments are not filled.

Out-of-hours appointments have been available in parts of the country since 2014 and NHS England said all surgeries should provide the facility from October 1 this year.

But figures obtained from clinical commissioning groups across the country showed that around half a million evening and weekend appointment slots have been left empty.

The data, from 80 clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), shows 37 per cent of Sunday appointments go unfilled, 24 per cent on Saturdays and 23 per cent on weekday evenings.

In Blackburn with Darwen, where there are four seven day access hubs, 7,889 of 8,598 (91.8 per cent) available appointments were taken up between April and September last year.

And from October 2017 to March this year, 8,539 of 9,140 (93.4 per cent )slots were booked up.

British Medical Association GP Committee chairman Dr Richard Vautrey said: "Because it has become a political must-do, everybody is jumping. We understand there is huge pressure from the centre on CCGs to demonstrate they are providing a full seven-day service.

"Sensible CCGs that want to use their resources in a better way are under pressure to maintain a service that really isn't good value for money.

"That is ridiculous so I think we really do need to see much more common sense and pragmatic flexibility.

"If we had the luxury of resource and workforce then we could look at extending the service but until then we've got to focus on what is most important."

NHS England told the magazine: "Even though six out of 10 CCGs didn't respond to this small survey, the more representative results of the annual GP survey and the patient response to new digital-first GP providers is clear: patients want quicker access to a trusted GP both during the working week and outside traditional surgery hours, and are increasingly prepared to vote with their feet to get it."