ONLY two per cent of NHS patients in Dorset have no access to a GP surgery extended hours service.

The Government says everyone should have "more convenient access to GP services, including appointments at evening and weekends", and has set a target date of October 1 for all patients to have access to extended hours.

In the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group area, 86 practices with 800,000 registered patients reported their results to the NHS.

The latest figures reveal that 66 per cent of patients, or 525,708 people, have full access while a further 33 per cent, or 262,605, can make an appointment on one or more of the extended periods.

Only 12,074 patients have no access at all to extended hours.

This compares with 10 per cent of registered patients across England, or 5,441,834 people, who have no access at all.

Dr Richard Vautrey, British Medical Association GP committee chair, said: "While schemes like this are rolled out and are successful in providing the services they are commissioned to do, we still believe the money invested in such programmes would be better spent improving core GP services.

"We know that patients are frustrated with being unable to get timely appointments during regular working hours, owing to increased demand and unmanageable GP workloads, and therefore it is these services that should be a priority for proper funding."