Wes Streeting, the shadow health and social care secretary, has said Labour would abolish the cap on doctors’ pensions which he believes would reduce waiting lists “and will inevitably save lives”.

The MP for Ilford North claimed the “crazy” cap deters many experienced doctors from working late into their careers.

He told the Telegraph: “I’m not pretending that doing away with the cap is a particularly progressive move. But it is one that sees patients seen faster, and will inevitably save lives. I’m just being hard-headed and pragmatic about this.”

The lifetime pension allowance, which was frozen last year at just over £1m until 2026, is the amount that any individual can save into a pension tax-free.

A second cap applies to the amount accumulated in a pension without incurring tax.

Under current rules doctors are unable to opt out of paying into their NHS pensions even if they have reached the cap, resulting in some high-earners taking early retirement.

Faced with a wait for a GP appointment, would you choose a group session with the doctor instead? It is an idea some surgeries are investigating.

Demand for appointments increasingly outweighs availability. In recent years, the number of GP appointments has risen by 13%, but GP numbers are up by less than 5%, putting huge pressure on surgeries.

In addition, many of us are living longer and with multiple long-term conditions, which can make consultations extremely complex. 

The traditional one-to-one 10-minute appointment is arguably no longer fit for purpose.

With no promise of increased funding, or a substantially increased GP workforce, primary care teams have to find innovative new ways of delivering routine care in general practice that simultaneously save time and improve quality. 

One such practice is Parchmore Medical Centre in Thornton Heath, Surrey. 

Anthony is a patient there. He says: “I’ve passed that magical age of 50 and got a call from the GP. I’ve got some weight issues and some blood pressure issues, so it’s time to do something.”

He had come in for an appointment – but one with a difference. Instead of the usual 10 minutes, he was going to have an hour-and-a-half with his GP. 

But he would not be seeing the doctor alone; he would be sharing his appointment with six other patients.

They all have weight issues and/or pre-diabetes. There were seven present at this particular consultation, but as many as 15 can attend.

The latest data from NHS Digital show that 2.45 million patients waited between 15 and 21 days in October to see a GP or other practice clinician, which was 8.3% of the total number of appointments, compared with 8% in October 2018.

Another 1.69 million waited between 22 and 28 days for a GP appointment while 1.66 million waited more than 28 days.

In both cases there was an increase in the percentage of patients affected compared to October last year.

The overall number of appointments increased to 30.8 million in October 2019 from 29.7 million in the same month the year before.

Most patients who want to see their own GP can no longer get an appointment with them, according to new figures suggesting the days of the family doctor are over. 

The statistics show record numbers of patients struggling to even get through on the telephone, and increasingly long waits for an appointment. 

For the first time, the majority of patients who wanted to see a particular doctor were unable to do so, the survey of more than 770,000 patients shows. 

The research comes amid mounting evidence of a wider NHS crisis, with waiting lists reaching an all-time high.  

Medics said the “worrying” situation was being fuelled by a dispute over pensions, with senior doctors increasingly refusing to work overtime, or opting for early retirement, to avoid high tax rates. 

The figures show that the proportion of patients finding it difficult to get through to make a GP appointment has risen by 65 per cent since 2012.  

In total, 31.7 per cent struggled to make contact, compared with 19.2 per cent seven year ago, the annual GP survey shows. 

More than half of those polled had a preferred GP.  

And of those just 48 per cent said they saw or spoke to them “always or almost always”, or “a lot of the time”. 

The figure is a fall from 50.2 per cent in 2018. It is also a steep drop from 65 per cent in 2012, although researchers said changes in the way the survey was carried out meant the figures were not directly comparable.

Rising numbers turned to A&E when their GP practices was closed the figures show.

Hundreds of villages have lost their GP surgery amid a deepening crisis across the country, an investigation reveals.

Experts said rural and coastal areas were being hit particularly hard by a national shortage of family doctors, forcing elderly and vulnerable patients to travel ever further for care.

The figures reveal 1,946 villages which are at least three miles from the nearest GP practice – 162 more than was the case just two years ago.

They include 206 areas where patients are forced to travel at least five miles – a 12 per cent increase on 2017 – with distances of up to 14 miles in some parts of the countryside.

More than half of the doctors from Europe working in the UK are considering leaving the country because of Brexit, a survey by the General Medical Council indicates.

Charlie Massey, the chief executive of the GMC, told the health select committee that while a survey was “not necessarily predictive of future behaviour” the results indicated a potential serious depletion in the workforce.

“It does send a worrying signal in terms of the stock of doctors currently working in the UK,” he said while giving evidence to MPs on Tuesday.

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said it was “extremely concerning that over half of doctors from the EEA [European Economic Area] feel so undervalued as to consider leaving the UK following the Brexit vote”.

The GMC said 2,106 doctors from the EEA, about 10% of the total who are working in the UK, had responded to the survey.

Of those who responded, 60% (1,280) said they were considering leaving the UK at some point in the future, and, of those doctors, 91% said the UK’s decision to leave the EU was a factor in their considerations.

Separately, a senior Department of Health official told the committee that British people claiming pensions who had emigrated to Europe were saving the UK about £350m a year in healthcare costs. Medical treatment in the most popular countries for British retirees, France and Spain, was cheaper than it was in the UK, said Paul MacNaught the director of EU, international and prevention programmes at the DoH.