Thousands left without their GP after sickness causes surgery in Kent to close
Video report by ITV News Meridian's Sarah Saunders
Thousands of patients in Kent have been left without GP services, after a large surgery in Folkestone closed its doors.
The New Surgery along Canterbury Road has been shut all week, blaming staff sickness for the closure.
It is currently not taking calls or dealing with repeat prescriptions, leaving around 11,000 patients without its care.
Gareth Webber, a local minister and patient of the surgery says: "We've been waiting now for over a week for the results of a test. And trying to get through to 111 and we're not able to do that either. There must be a whole bunch of people waiting to be seen, for prescriptions, waiting for all of those things."
It is not known whether there has been an outbreak of coronavirus at the surgery, or some other form of sickness.
When they call, patients receive a recorded message asking them not to post prescriptions through the letter box, because they won't be actioned.
The local pharmacist, Saeed Farooqui, is doing what he can to help file repeat prescriptions.
He says: "It is a little bit of a tough time but we are trying our best. We have thousands of patients and now we are receiving lots of calls. The good thing is we have access to patient records, but that takes a lot of time because there are a lot of checks we have to do before we can dispense anything."
On Thursday evening the surgery posted an update on their website saying that eight members of staff had tested positive for Coronavirus and "deep clean" had been carried out.
The surgery will only be able to provide a reduced number of telephone appointments due to the practice now only having a quarter of its staff.
The New Surgery will re-open on Monday the 23rd of November.