Priory Surgery’s mission is to provide effective, compassionate care for our community. We will always do everything we can to make sure you get the right care when you need it and will offer appointments as soon as possible, based on a patient’s clinical needs. We have worked hard to improve access for our patients by ensuring that appointments requests are navigated to the most appropriate clinician and that we offer the right balance of urgent vs routine slots.

However, we are aware that sometimes accessing GP services here at Priory, across the locality and nationwide can be challenging. We thought it might be useful to take some time to explain why, and to outline the measures we have and are putting in place in response to this.

Current Demand:

Although GP numbers have risen, there are now only 0.44 fully qualified GPs per 1,000 patients in England – down from 0.52 in 2015. GPs and practices are now seeing nearly half the of the country’s population every month and Consultation rates per patient have also increased. In part this is due to an ageing population and the fact that patients suffering from multiple conditions is more common. BMA: Pressures in General Practice. However, the situation is made worse by delays in Secondary Care.

Delays in Secondary Care:

The waiting times for treatment in secondary care (hospitals) feed into this. The statistics for November 2025 showed that:

• The waiting list stood at 7.31 million cases, consisting of approximately 6.17 million individual patients waiting for treatment
• Around 2.75 million of these patients have been waiting over 18 weeks;
• Approximately 154,000 of these patients have been waiting over a year for treatment – a decrease from around 170,000 the previous month (October 2025).
• The median waiting time for patients waiting to start treatment was 12.9 weeks – a significant increase from the pre-COVID median wait of 7.7 weeks in November 2019.
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NHS backlog data analysis (bma.org.uk)

Whilst patients are either waiting for referral or waiting for follow-up, their need for care does not disappear and GPs inevitably and understandably become the holding area whilst patients wait for hospital treatment. Calls from patients requesting that we expedite their referral add even more to existing workload challenges.

Workforce Shortages:

On top of a static GP workforce, of this, there is a national shortage of experienced clinicians in other areas; this includes Nurses, Advanced Nurse Practitioners, Pharmacists and Physiotherapists. (the link below will take you to a snapshot of the current workforce challenges according to the British Medical Association. Pressures in general practice data analysis (bma.org.uk).) This means that it can, therefore, take time to find additional or replacement clinical staff.

What is Priory doing to address this?

Expanding our workforce:

Despite the current workforce challenges, we are doing our best to expand our capacity wherever we can. We are proud to be a teaching practice and feel that it is a testament to our values and organisational culture that our recent trainees have been keen to stay with us, and our patients, on qualifying. We have recruited 4 doctors in this way over the past 3 years. We also now employ a number of skilled allied health professionals who are able to support our patients in a variety of ways. These include a Social Prescriber, two Mental Health Practitioners,  a Mental Health and Wellbeing Coach, two physiotherapists and a practice pharmacist.  

Utilising technology to improve patient experience and efficiency:

Expanding online access has led to a reduction in call waiting times – and whilst the average reduction sits at about 40%, over the summer months call waiting times were reduced to around 80% of what they were a year ago. We are also participating in a number of A.I. software pilots which aim at speeding up our administration processes to free up both clinical and non-clinical time.  

Engaging with our Patient Participation Group:

We have an active PPG and discuss issues relating to access and many other pertinent topics in our quarterly meetings. Topics we have recently discussed include how best to promote the valuable skill sets our non-GP clinicians possess and how best to tackle non-attendance at appointments. If you are interested in taking part in these useful and enjoyable sessions, please click here for further information.

Looking after our staff and protecting their morale:

We are also very mindful of the need to retain our staff in such challenging circumstances. Recently we reviewed the workload of our General Practitioners. Our doctors are currently delivering above the BMA recommended number of appointments each day, but to ensure both the clinical safety of our patients and the mental and physical well-being of our GPs, we do monitor our capacity and will refer to other services once safe limits are reached.

We also seek to ensure the well-being of the whole team by requesting that our patients treat all staff members with kindness and respect.  It is of course vital that we know about and act on any instances where our staff’s conduct falls below the standard expected of them. Equally though we would ask that our patients also adhere to the agreement laid out in our Patient Charter, and refrain from taking out any frustration they may be feeling in relation to some of the current challenges, on the staff member in front of them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. We are here for you, and all of us care very much about the service we provide to you. We are always open to feedback but there are some issues that are bigger than us and may take some time to resolve.

ay take some time to resolve.