In July 2025, general practice delivered 33.6 million appointments, making it the busiest July on record and a 4.3% rise compared with July 2024. Traditionally, summer has offered a degree of respite for services, but this pattern has broken. The surge in primary care demand does not remain within general practice alone. It spills directly into secondary care, affecting outpatient referrals, diagnostics, emergency attendances and the balance of elective activity. For those preparing for consultant interviews, the implications are wide-ranging. Demand and flow are classic interview themes, and this announcement provides a current context.
What is being announced
NHS England highlighted the record activity in July following an equally record-breaking June. This reflects rising demand across routine consultations, urgent appointments and care home visits. The announcement also emphasised the increasing role of GPs in managing complex care closer to home, but with the clear acknowledgement that volume and intensity are rising.
Reference: https://www.england.nhs.uk/2025/08/busiest-july-on-record-for-general-practice-teams/
How this adds to what is already known
Rising demand is a long-standing issue, but the news here is its persistence across months that once provided relief. Seasonal planning assumptions are less reliable. For secondary care, this means referral inflow may remain consistently high rather than fluctuating. Waiting list growth, emergency department pressure and diagnostic bottlenecks are no longer problems confined to winter. This aligns with broader performance data showing increased referral activity alongside higher treatment numbers.
Implications for the system, trusts and professionals
For trusts, constant referral pressure changes capacity planning. Clinics are more likely to overrun, diagnostics remain under strain and emergency departments receive patients who could not secure same-day GP access. Specialty services such as gastroenterology, dermatology or orthopaedics will see greater demand, with knock-on effects on elective waits. For consultants and trainees, this means daily work is shaped by volume, and job planning must balance throughput with quality and training. Demand management strategies such as advice and guidance, pathway redesign and joint triage criteria become essential.
Interview relevance
Panels will often ask how you would respond to rising demand or redesign services to improve flow. This announcement gives you concrete, current evidence. It allows you to show you understand the upstream pressures in general practice and the downstream effects in secondary care. A strong answer will demonstrate awareness of system-wide flow, practical solutions to manage referrals, and sensitivity to maintaining training quality under pressure.
Possible interview questions
- How would you redesign your outpatient service in response to rising GP referrals?
- What role could consultant-led advice and guidance play in reducing unnecessary referrals?
- How would you protect trainee learning opportunities in the context of consistently high clinic demand?
How to use this information
As a candidate, you cannot speak to GPs directly, but you can review published referral-to-treatment and activity data for your target trust. You can also examine CQC inspection reports that often highlight access and flow issues. On pre-interview visits, ask consultants or service managers how the surge in GP activity is affecting referral numbers and capacity. Explore whether advice and guidance services are in place and how effective they are. Reference the GMC trainee survey for your specialty in the trust, which often provides indirect information about how demand affects training. In interview, show you can connect the dots: high GP activity means higher referral pressure, which requires robust triage, clear referral criteria and innovative approaches to advice and guidance.
Summary
Record demand in general practice is shaping the whole system. Consultants will be expected to engage actively with referral management and service redesign. In interviews, show that you understand the links between primary care activity and secondary care pressure, and that you can propose practical, realistic solutions.
Cheat Sheet: How to Say This in Interview
“The NHS recently reported 33.6 million GP appointments in July, the busiest July on record. That matters for secondary care because higher GP activity translates into more referrals and greater demand on diagnostics and outpatient clinics.”
“Protecting training is critical. I would structure clinics so trainees can still have observed cases and feedback even when demand is high.”
“I would support demand management by strengthening advice and guidance in my specialty, ensuring GPs can access consultant advice before referring.”
“On a pre-interview visit I looked at referral-to-treatment data and saw how referral numbers are rising. I would want to contribute to redesigning clinic templates so they can absorb this pressure while maintaining teaching opportunities.”
