Welcome to the 2024 year in review from Find a Doctor BC.
We have put together statistics about what happened in 2024 with regard to family practitioners accepting new patients in BC.
Areas covered.
Since May 2022 we have covered the entire province. We monitor about 3,500 family practitioners in 855 clinics located in 139 towns and cities.
Results
From our data throughout the province, at end of 2024, there were 47 clinics who were accepting new patients, 13 who were accepting new patients in a limited way, 53 had a wait list and 721 were not accepting new patients and had no wait list.
Typically, there is only one family practitioner at a time in a clinic accepting new patients. This implies about 1 in 60 family practitioners were accepting new patients at the end of year.
During 2024, we detected 305 “good news” events, either a clinic starting to accept new patients or starting an active waitlist.
End of 2024 results broken down by region
| Region | Total # of clinics in region | Accepting New Patients | Limited Accepting | Active Waitlist | Walkin only | Not accepting | Were accepting at some point last year |
| Abbotsford Chilliwack | 63 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 59 | 11 |
| Burnaby Coquitlam | 77 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 71 | 12 |
| Cariboo North | 81 | 8 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 63 | 10 |
| Kootenay | 36 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 30 | 3 |
| Langley Maple Ridge | 33 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 24 | 7 |
| Mid Island | 72 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 65 | 5 |
| North Island | 20 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 11 | 8 |
| North Shore | 52 | 7 | 2 | 9 | 2 | 32 | 22 |
| Richmond Delta | 53 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 44 | 11 |
| South Island | 68 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 62 | 3 |
| Sunshine Coast | 11 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 1 |
| Surrey White Rock | 95 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 4 | 82 | 14 |
| Thompson Okanagan | 100 | 8 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 85 | 16 |
| Vancouver City | 94 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 83 | 15 |
| Total for Province | 855 | 47 | 13 | 53 | 21 | 721 | 138 |
| Percent | 5% | 2% | 6% | 2% | 84% | 16% |
Note we only find clinics that are officially accepting new patients. If a doctor accepts a new patient via family and friends, we generally don’t hear about it. Our surveys show that about 1 in 7 patients find doctors through family and friends.
Search your town/city for clinics accepting new patients Search NowWebsite Usage
Patients looking for care used the Findadoctorbc.ca website a lot last year, with over 311,000 users accessing 3.7 million pageviews over the year. We received over 4,500 call reports from folks telling us what they learned while speaking with clinics. Having concise, uniform clinic listings and up-to-date accepting status available has helped avoid millions of extra phone calls to clinics asking whether they are accepting new patients.
Notification Service
In addition to the website, we offer a notification service that will send you an email when a clinic in your region starts accepting new patients. From exit survey data (given to people who are leaving the service), of those who filled out the survey, 80% had found a family doctor or nurse practitioner. We also asked how these people actually found doctors. 60% had found the practitioner through the notification service while 13% had found one through family and friends and 27% by other means. Only 5% found a doctor through a Regional Wait list (such as the Health Connect Registry or Division of Family Practice)
You can be notified when clinics start accepting new patients in your area. Sign-up NowA Final Word
While things are looking up for people finding family practitioners in some areas of the province, the availability varies a lot by geography. For example North Vancouver, with a population of 146 thousand, currently has seven clinics accepting new patients, while Victoria, with a population of 434 thousand, has one, and it is a non-MSP, private clinic. Vancouver Island in general is the hardest place to find a family practitioner in the province.
Another trend is more Nurse Practitioners being available, which is great. Our latest exit surveys show about 10% of people are choosing this option for care.
Finally, in 2023, the BC government introduced a province wide wait list called the Health Connect Registry. We recommend everyone who needs a family practitioner in BC sign up for the service, however we are continuing our work to help people find care because many clinics are still accepting patients directly. As noted above, of people surveyed who have found a family practitioner, only 5% found them through the government waitlist.
Sincerely
The Find a Doctor BC team, Don and Ruth