British people waste 1.52 billion hours annually waiting on the phone for GP appointments and energy companies – a time equivalent to all employees in Manchester being on hold.

BRITS lose 1.5 billion hours a year to broken service systems, a report revealed yesterday.

Dealing with scheduling appointments with GPs, navigating council websites, and seeking help from energy helplines now consumes as much time as if all the workers in Manchester were put on hold for an entire year.

A study conducted by The New Britain Project revealed that frustration with the state of affairs in “broken Britain” has escalated to the point of being deemed a “political and economic emergency,” resulting in a loss of £26 billion for the economy.

The think tank found that 78 per cent of adults regularly face service-related frustration.

Middle-aged women, often juggling work and care, report the highest levels of stress.

The everyday struggles are pushing voters away from the mainstream parties, with Reform UK and Green Party supporters the most fed up.

Author of the report, Anna McShane, cautioned that failure by Labour ministers to address these issues could lead to voters increasingly turning to alternative political parties.

She said: “People are fed up with wasting their time.

“If nothing changes, they’ll back parties promising to tear the system apart.”