Community Pharmacy Wales found that approximately 50% of patients would have gone to their GP first

An audit by Community Pharmacy Wales found that approximately fifty per cent of patients who received a consultation in Welsh pharmacies would have gone to their GP first. If patients approached their GP first, this would have resulted in an additional thirty-five thousand and three hundred GP surgery appointments per seven days.

The audit took place between 28 September 2020 and 9 October 2020, and recorded five-hundred and twenty-two pharmacy’s data on nine thousand, nine hundred and seventy-five patient consultations.

Each pharmacy, on average, recorded fifteen-point-five consultations every twenty-four hours, with consultations lasting six-point-four minutes.