Appointment demand

Article Date: 16th November 2022

Dear patients,

GP surgeries are currently experiencing extremely high demand for appointments. On Monday 14th November, we received 157 requests to be seen urgently that day; this is in addition to the 205 GP & Nurse appointments that were already booked for that day.

We want to reassure patients that we are doing all we can to manage this demand. Many of our doctors will be working additional shifts over the coming weeks, however there may still be times when we reach our capacity to deal with non-urgent same day requests.

We wish to continue providing a high standard of care in a timely way, prioritising those patients in most urgent need, and do not want patients to be put off from consulting us for serious and worrying health concerns. In order to help us try and maintain services to those most in need of them, we need your help in the following ways:

Our reception team are trained to care navigate patients to the most appropriate clinician or service; this may include them suggesting you speak to your pharmacist in the first instance or contact the 111 service for general advice.

Additional appointments are also being offered by the GP+ service during evenings and at weekends, so you may be offered an appointment at their location in Bury St Edmunds if we are already fully booked.

Please be patient with our staff – they are trying their best to allocate a precious resource under difficult circumstances.

Thank you for your understanding, from the partners and staff at Mount Farm Surgery