Like many GP surgeries both in our local area and across England, we are currently experiencing unprecedented demand on our service. The demand we are facing is impacting all teams at the surgery, including our pharmacy team.
To give a brief picture of this, between 08:00 and 12:00 on Monday 19th December 2022, over 200 calls were made to the practice. 92 of these were made between 08:00 and 09:00. Of these, a significant number were requesting urgent advice and by 08:30, our GPs, including our duty doctor, had reached capacity. This is on top of all additional duties required of the doctor on call, including dealing with urgent incoming documents and urgent test results.
Understandably, Mondays are generally our busiest day of the week. However, for comparison, in October 2022, we received an average of 245 incoming calls each Monday across our full opening hours 08:00 – 18:30.
There is a limit to the service our clinicians can safely provide. If we reach our safe capacity and you need urgent advice, our team will direct you to call 111.
As a result of this demand, you may also experience longer wait times on our telephones. Please use our website to contact us with routine queries. If you are unsure who to see, use the 111 online service 111.nhs.uk for advice.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.