Patients advised of high levels of staff illness at local GP surgeries

Wednesday, 30 March 2022 10:44

Services at several local GP surgeries have been affected by high levels of staff sickness.

Queen Square Medical Practice in Lancaster and Bay Medical Group have advised patients this week that staffing levels were being affected due to illness.

Queen Square announced a temporary suspension of its eConsult service on March 18, March 21, March 22, March 24, March 25, March 28 and March 29 due to Covid-related staff sickness.

eConsult is a piece of software that allows patients to get help and advice from their own doctors and GP practice online, for free, from anywhere.

On March 29, a post on the practice Facebook page said: "We are unfortunately having to turn eConsult off for the remaining duration of the day.

"Our staff levels are still being affected by Covid-19 and absences but we are doing our best to keep things running as smooth as possible in the meantime. Thanks for your patience."

A spokesperson for Queen Square said services were running normally today (March 30) but eConsult would be switched off again tomorrow (March 31) due to sickness levels.

Meanwhile, Bay Medical Group, which runs Morecambe Health Centre, Heysham Primary Care Centre, West End Medical Practice, Westgate Medical Practice and York Bridge Surgery, put out a message to patients for week commencing March 28, having put out a similar statement on March 22.

It said: "Unfortunately, we are still experiencing extremely high levels of staff absence across all teams in the practice this week.

"Please can we politely ask that you only call the practice if you feel it cannot wait.

"All teams are working additional hours to keep things running; however please bear with us as we expect our call wait times to be longer than usual.

"We have a limited number of on the day appointments, but we do have video consult appointments through our Push Doctor service if your request is appropriate for this service.

"Thank you for your understanding."