Oldham MP Angela Rayner has criticised the number of patients unable to get an appointment or speak to a GP or nurse.

New figures from NHS England show that 16 per cent of patients in Greater Manchester could not get an appointment to see or speak to a GP or nurse the last time they tried.

The data also reveals that in the past year, 1,108,264 GP appointments in the North West were held a month late.

In June alone, 52,740 appointments were held a month late in Greater Manchester.

A third of appointments were conducted via telephone or online rather than face to face.

When the Conservatives entered Government in 2010, the guarantee of a GP appointment within 48 hours was scrapped.

However, at the time some doctors welcomed the change – saying the target could put people most ill at risk, with appointments becoming clogged up by those less in need.

Over the 12 years of Conservative government since then, public satisfaction with GP services has fallen by 39 percentage points – from 70 per cent in 2010 to just 36 per cent now, the lowest level since the survey began in 1983.

Angela Rayner, MP for Failsworth and Ashton, said: “I hear from concerned constituents who are struggling to see a GP because this Government is failing to staff our health service.

“We need more GPs but the Conservatives have once again over-promised and under-delivered.

“The Government has admitted it is failing to meet its manifesto pledge to recruit more GPs. Under the Conservatives, the number of GPs is falling and hundreds of GP practices have closed since the 2019 general election. As a result, many ‘GP appointments’ held today are not with a GP.

“People in Ashton, Droylsden and Failsworth deserve a Labour government that will give the NHS what it needs to see people on time, not more of the same from the Conservatives.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “There are a number of reasons why there may be a gap between the date of booking and the date of an appointment – for example, patients may wish to schedule routine appointments further in advance.

“GP teams are working incredibly hard and in June they delivered over 26 million appointments, and we are creating an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024.

“There are already now nearly 1,500 more doctors in general practice than before the pandemic, and as of June 2022, almost three quarters of patients were seen within a week of booking an appointment.”

This story has been updated with a comment from the Department of Health and Social Care.