The data shows how many patients had to wait more than four weeks for an appointment at their local practice in October, revealing the strain many surgeries are under. Across England, nearly half of appointments in October (49%) took place on the day they were booked, analysis of the NHS Digital data found. However, 640,000 appointments - 3% of the total - took place more than 28 days later. This didn’t include appointments which are usually booked in advance, such as medication reviews. And in some surgeries, the proportion of patients waiting more than four weeks was far higher. There are several factors that influence the length of time a patient has to wait for an appointment, including availability at the practice, patient availability and the urgency of the issue. The British Medical Association, the trade union for doctors, said the monthly figures were the “highest level of GP appointments on record”. And the Royal College of GPs said the figures showed “how hard GPs and their teams are working to deliver increasingly complex care to a growing number of patients, against a backdrop of severe workforce shortages”. These are the nine GP practices in Hastings and St Leonards with the highest percentage of appointments involving waits of more than 28 days. Practices which had fewer than 100 appointments in October have been omitted.