Bolton’s GPs are increasingly using newer methods to help tend to patients amid mounting pressures that have seen fewer doctors care for more people.

This comes amid a nationwide recruitment crisis that, in Bolton’s case, has seen every doctor care for an average of more than 2,000 patients even as face-to-face appointments increase again after the end of lockdown.

In response, family doctors have frequently made use of internet and telephone communications to ensure that, even as their resources are stretched, they still care for as many patients as possible, while other professionals have also come to the fore to meet people’s needs.

NHS Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group chief officer Su Long said: “Our latest audit has shown that there has been no decrease in the number of GPs sessions, the number of half days worked by GPs, in Bolton.

“At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of other professionals working in practices.

“These include mental health practitioners, paramedics, pharmacists, advanced nurse practitioners and musculoskeletal practitioners, highly skilled professionals who are often better qualified to deal with specialist patient concerns than a GP.”

Over time the number of appointments carried out by practice staff other than GPs in Bolton surgeries has risen from 53,000 in January last year to 59,000 in January this year.

In response, Bolton West MP Chris Green said that though face-to-face meetings were often “more comfortable” for patients, the increase in other kinds of appointments helped to meet people’s needs as well.

But while this helped take some of the pressure off, local doctors’ representatives still warned that the government had to take action before the workload facing GPs became “unsustainable.”

Royal College of GPs chair Professor Martin Marshall said "GPs want to be able to consistently give their patients the care they deserve, no matter where they live in the country.

“But the increased workload expected of GPs and their teams while their numbers fail to increase at the necessary pace, is unsustainable.

“The government urgently needs to make good on its manifesto promise of 6,000 more full time equivalent GPs by 2024.”