The practice team continues to work hard to support our patients with your urgent and routine requests, while also delivering the mass vaccination programme to our local population.

Over the past year across the Surrey Heartlands area, 2.7 million GP appointments have been provided to patients face to face (that’s nearly 2.5 appointments for each person living in the area!). The majority of these will have been with a doctor, but also include other clinical staff at the practice such as the nursing team.

Demand for GP services – as with other parts of the NHS – continues to be very high. To help us help you, please can you provide as much information as possible when making a request, either via our website form or to our reception team if you are phoning. This helps us get you to the right person to help you as quickly as possible, which will include face to face appointments where needed.

We would also like to recognise that patients have understandably found it frustrating when they have gone to submit a request on our website, to find the form switched off. We would far prefer to have our forms available all the time, but because demand is so high, we are not able to answer all the online and phone requests that would come in. That’s why we sometimes need to close the forms and redirect you to another service (like your local pharmacist or 111).

We also recognise that digital services aren’t accessible or the preferred choice for everyone. That’s why we’d also like to reassure you that our phone lines are still available, though appreciate it might take some time to get through. Please do bear with our staff team, they are dealing with the calls as quickly as they can.

Finally, please remember, if you need urgent help and you’re not sure where to go, you can call NHS111 (or visit them online at www.111.nhs.uk) who can triage your call and advise you on the right help and support – where appropriate they can also make an appointment for you with the right service, including A&E.