FEWER than two-thirds of people registered with GP surgeries in Dorset have access to doctor appointments over weekends and weekday mornings and evenings.

It comes despite a pledge from the government in 2014 that every patient will have access to GP services seven days a week by 2020.

In Dorset, 65.7 per cent of patients are described as having ‘full provision’ – access to pre-bookable appointments on a Saturday and on Sundays and every weekday for at least 1.5 hours outside of normal hours – with 32.8 per cent having ‘partial provision’ – extended hours on at least one day a week – while 1.5 per cent have no access to out-of-hours appointments.

Only two English CCGs offer full provision across all practices – Herefordshire and Rushcliffe – but NHS England said it was “ahead of schedule”.

Two Dorset GP practices, with a combined number of registered patients of more than 12,000, do not offer any appointments outside of usual hours while 50, caring for more than 525,000 people offer full provision.

“We have been working to commission improved access to general practice services across Dorset," a Dorset CCG spokesman said.

“Groups of general practices have been working together in their local areas, and are now offering a range of evening services across the week and at weekends throughout the county.

"They are also on plan to meet the full additional hours of access by October 2018.”

A spokesman for NHS England said: “The NHS is investing at least £258m this year to offer improved access to general practice, including evening and weekend appointments.

“This is ahead of schedule with appointments available to more than half the country now and they will be available across the whole country by October this year.

The move to increase the number of GP practices offering appointments for extended hours was started by David Cameron in 2014 as part of work to improve access to doctors.

The government said that £400m would be required over the five years to support the changes.

However, the British Medical Association (BMA) said that the resources being put into the project GP appointments would be better spent improving the existing system.

Dr Richard Vautrey, its GP committee chairman, 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.”