Councillor raises complaints about lack of GP appointments across Gedling borough with Notts health boss

A councillor representing Gedling on the county’s health board has complained to NHS bosses about the lack of GP appointments available across the borough.

Councillor Henry Wheeler said he contacted the Nottinghamshire and Nottingham CCG following a ‘large amount of complaints’ from residents saying they can’t get appointments, treatments or check-ups at surgeries across the borough.

Joe Lunn is the Associate Director of Primary Care NHS Nottinghamshire and Nottingham CCG and responded to patiets’ concerns.

“Demand for General Practice appointments is currently extremely high,” he said.

“As people come out of lockdown, confidence to access services is growing and many practices are seeing more patients now than they did before the start of the pandemic.  This contributes to the comments being made by patients in relation to accessing services. 

“Latest activity data for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG for March 2021 shows that there were 534,353 GP appointments undertaken. 55% of these appointments were seen face-to-face and 51% were seen on the same day or next.  This does not fully capture the scale of work being undertaken by our general practices on behalf of patients as this is information only reflects appointments.”

Mr Lunn was asked about problems with phone system being used to book appointments, with many being on hold for long periods of time.

He said: “A large number of our practices across the borough use a Mitel Phone system which is supported by our Health Informatics Service. I have liaised with them in relation to the points raised and they will look to ascertain with the system provider whether there are any issues with the system.

Mr Lunn was asked to respond to complaints from patients with long-term conditions were having to go without medication and check-ups due to lack of access to a GP.

He responded: “General Practices have remained open to meet the needs of patients throughout the pandemic and are working extremely hard to ensure that patients with long-term conditions and those needing on-going care continue to receive the care they need. 

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“There are local schemes being developed to support patients with long terms conditions remotely such as BP@Home (Blood Pressure) monitoring patients.”

Mr Lunn said that practices were still working hard to provide the best service possible.

He said: “Patients will continue to be assessed and treated as they present to General Practice as they have continued to do throughout the pandemic. General Practices are for the majority of patients the first point of contact for accessing care and support from the NHS, across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire all practices are focused on delivering the best care possible for them.

Following the response from Mr Lunn, Mr Wheeler called for more action to resolve the issues around appointments.

He said:  “Crucially in order to sort patient care issues out locally, we need an NHS rescue plan that sees patient care prioritised locally in the recovery from the Covid Pandemic, so people don’t have to wait weeks and in some cases months before getting an appointment”.