PATIENTS in Bolton now find it harder to see a GP at evenings and weekends — causing queues outside some practices, Labour has claimed.

Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham launched the party’s new poster campaign, dubbed "The doctor can’t see you now" in Atherton yesterday.

The image – which shows a queue of patients snaking out of a doctors’ waiting room – declares "The Tories have made it harder to see a GP" and plays on the Conservative poster, released in the run up to the 1979 general election, which proclaimed "Labour isn’t working".

Labour has claimed almost 600 fewer practices are offering extended opening hours than when the coalition government came to power.

But the Conservatives said Mr Burnham’s figures were out of date, and pointed to the prime minister’s challenge fund, which is helping millions of patients see a doctor out of hours.

Speaking to The Bolton News after the launch, Mr Burnham said one patient in Leigh, where he will fight to regain his seat next month, described trying to get a GP appointment as “like trying to buy sought-after concert tickets”.

He added: “Patients’ real experience is that gaining access to a GP is getting harder.

“They are ringing the surgery and being told there are no appointments available, in some cases for weeks.

“When Labour was in government, by 2010 we had ensured four out of five people could get an appointment within 48 hours.”

Mr Burnham said a Labour government would recruit 8,000 more GPs, with more deprived areas like Bolton – which are traditionally "under doctored" – receiving a larger proportion of doctors.

He said this would be funded via a mansion tax, a levy on tobacco companies and closing a loophole on hedge funds.

But Andy Morgan, the Conservative candidate for Heaton and Lostock ward in the Bolton Council elections next month, said Labour’s figures were wrong.

Mr Morgan said the prime minister’s challenge fund already covers 1,100 practices – helping 7.5 million patients to see a GP in the evenings and weekends – and will have helped 10 million more by next year.

He said: “In the last 12 years I think the situation in Bolton has improved.

“Bolton CCG has invested a lot of money into extending GP availability and appointments outside the traditional hours. It is something all parties have argued for locally.

“The government is trying to invest, moving forward, to make more provision for patients and the CCG has listened locally to make sure it is not wasting limited resources.

“I think the CCG is doing a good job – and rather than making cheap political points we should all be supporting it.”

Mr Morgan also pointed to Wales, where Labour scrapped GP appointment guarantees and where only 44 per cent of surgeries are now open during the full core hours —8am to 6.30pm, Monday to Friday.

But Mr Burnham said the prime minister’s challenge fund only covered one in 10 patients, and so had no impact on the majority of people.

Last week NHS Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) launched a contract to increase access to GPs during core hours by 61,776 appointments per year.

Last year 43 practices in Bolton – which look after 257,000 patients, or 86 per cent of the borough – signed up to a national scheme to extend opening hours.

A prime minister’s challenge fund bid has been submitted by the CCG to extend this further, and formal procurement for a new provider of GP out of hours services is currently underway.