A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) suggests that GPs failing to open during normal office hours are fuelling Britain’s Accident & Emergency crisis.
The study found almost half are not open full-time -- with one in five regularly closing by 3pm.
Urging practices to “get the basics right”, MPs said a “postcode lottery” in access to family doctors was heaping pressures on A&E units, with shorter opening hours linked to worse outcomes and higher death rates.
The NAO report also warns that Government plans to improve access to GP at weekends could be hindered by shortages of doctors, and a failure to properly assess the costs of such schemes.
It warns that the lack of access to GP surgeries is partly to blame for the crisis in casualty units.
Ministers have repeatedly promised that by 2020 every patient in England will be able to see a GP seven days a week.
But officials calculate the NHS will have 1,900 fewer family doctors than they predicted in three years' time, as they are struggling to fill training places.
It also highlighted how many of the existing GPs work part time, particularly as a growing proportion of the workforce is female.
The report calls for more to be done to improve access to family doctors.
