Inside the GP surgery which receives 9,000 calls a day as public demand rises

ITV Central Health Correspondent Nancy Cole met a GP who said she and colleagues were 'trying their best to meet the needs of the public'

GP surgeries across the country are being criticised over a lack of available appointments - especially ones face-to-face - after practices became used to phone and video calls during the pandemic.

But across Leicestershire and Rutland, more appointments are being made than ever before.

ITV News Central spent a day at one surgery in Leicester to find out how staff are coping with rising public demand.

The GP 

Dr Sulaxi Nainani has been a GP for 16 years. The past year is one of the busiest she’s known. On an average Monday morning at De Montfort Surgery in Leicester, she sees around 25 patients face-to-face and a few extras in person and on the phone. 

Dr Nainani explained why the demand for appointments is so great.

“Some of them have been to the hospital and they need a follow up to be seen by their clinician. There might be patients who are waiting for the medications they ran out of on the weekend," she said.

“Some people are waiting for their hospital appointments, they’ve been postponed. A hospital appointment has now become an acute need, so they probably waited for a year for the surgery. But now the problems have got a lot more worse." 

The reality of covid is still impacting on staff numbers. “We have four staff down with Covid," she said. "It does put a lot of pressure on the rest of the clinical team having to deliver services they want to deliver.”

So how does she feel when she sees comments about patients being unable to make an appointment or how GPs don’t want to work?”

Dr Nainani admitted it was sometimes frustrating because “we are trying our best on a daily basis from 8am in the morning to late evening trying to work endless hours to do those things". 

What motivates her is working towards what is “best for her patients”.

The GP receptionist

Receptionist Julie Tannahill said she can receive up to 9,000 calls a day from the public

Julie Tannahill has worked in a GP practice, now as a reception manager, for over 20 years. The volume of calls her team receives is constant daily. 

"We can take between 7,000 to 9,000 calls a day," she said. "There could be many reasons, most of them would be they would like to speak to a GP. 

"There are a lot of admin-sided questions such as Covid passes and where they can get a vaccination."

Receptionists are often seen as the gatekeepers to getting an appointment so can sometimes face abuse from patients. 

For Julie, this can be upsetting. 

She said: "Team members have been reduced to tears.

"They are just trying to do their job and get you the right care. It might not be what you want at that time but we will always give you options and we will always try to help you, that’s what we are here for."

How are GPs meeting the demand?

According to NHS data, there are more appointments being made in general practice than there were pre-pandemic across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. Almost three times as many consultations now take place over the phone. 

But with many patients frustrated about a lack of face-to-face options, how can demand be met?

De Montfort Surgery has been trialling open access appointments since the end of 2021.  Between the hours of 8.30am and 10.30am, anyone who walks in can get seen, they just have to “sit and wait”. It was introduced after patients called for better access to a GP. 

It also uses a team of nurses and in-house pharmacists to take the strain of GPs for routine appointments and tasks.

Kerry Clay has been a community pharmacist at the surgery for over a year.

She took an 18 month additional training pathway to become a prescriber, independent of a GP, so she can see patients with long-term conditions such as diabetes and asthma. 

Kerry offers between eight and ten appointments in the morning to look at medication reviews. Later, she’ll look at discharge letters from secondary care. 

"Those roles traditionally, medication reviews and letters, were done by doctors before," she said. "So hopefully by us doing these new roles in the practice, it frees up the doctors' time to see unwell patients.”