Figures show that practices in the area served by NHS Central East Integrated Care Board – Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes – offered more than 5,480,000 appointments between May and July 2026, an increase of over 396,000 (7.8%) compared with the same period a year earlier.
On the average weekday, more than 85,600 people had an appointment with a healthcare professional in general practice. With over 3.5 million people registered with a GP in our area, this means that each day, one in every 41 registered patients booked a consultation at a general practice, compared with one in 45 a year earlier.
The figures also reveal that 59.6% of primary care appointments were face-to-face, compared with 63.9% over the same period in 2025, reflecting the growing use of technology to offer appointments online or by phone, without the need to see the patient face-to-face. 47.2% of appointments were booked for the same day, compared with 45.1% a year earlier.
Unfortunately, on the average weekday, 2,934 (3.4%) people did not attend their booked primary care appointment, higher than the 3.3% who did so in the same period in 2025.
Maria Wogan, Executive Director of Neighbourhood Health, Place and Partnerships at NHS Central East Integrated Care Board, said:
“We know there’s more to do, but local residents already know that NHS staff are working incredibly hard to offer more appointments in order to meet their needs. Increasingly the practice workload can be spread among different clinical roles: for example, a pharmacist will carry out medication reviews, and a practice nurse or paramedic may help patients manage long-term conditions such as asthma or diabetes.
“This allows your practice to make the best use of all their staff’s expertise and time, and it frees up your GP to deal with patients who need more complex care.
“Patients can help their general practice by keeping their appointments, or cancelling them if they’re no longer needed. Every time a patient fails to keep an appointment, that’s a slot which could have been offered to someone else, so please make sure you cancel in good time if you don’t need to be seen.”