Thank you for bearing with us during these hugely stressful times for everyone. We have been touched by many kind messages of support whilst we have strived to provide you with the best service we can.

We want to provide an open and honest account of the situation we find ourselves in. We know we are not alone in this. Many surgeries around us and up and down the country are experiencing the same challenges.

In the week commencing 9th May 2021, we received 20% more requests for care than our highest week during any of the last 12 months (which is significantly higher than the year before). We have the same number of clinicians to handle the additional work. Recruitment is challenging, as you can imagine at the moment, as all areas of the NHS have a demand surge as we all try to manage our covid-19 induced backlogs.

As you may recall we introduced a new online system in May 2020. This was introduced as part of the government plan for all surgeries to offer online access. It is an amazing tool to enable you to access us, at a time to suit you. However, we like many other surgeries, are finding that some patients are reporting minor symptoms at very early stages of their illness. For example this week, we have been asked to review a cough 4 hours old, a verruca, and an earache for 12 hours old. With self-care and due attention, most cases of minor illnesses do resolve without treatment from a clinician. Review these cases stops GPs being able to deal with more serious illnesses in a timely manner.

The government are trialling booking patient appointments with your local pharmacist for minor ailments, so that may be coming to us all soon. There are many extremely helpful guides for self-help on our website. Please use these whenever possible.