GPs warn there is limited capacity for routine calls amid high volume of urgent appointments

GPs have warned that they have limited capacity to respond to routine calls amid ongoing health service pressures.

With significant resources being taken up by urgent appointments, doctors have expressed concern that medical conditions are going undetected.

In a single day, one surgery in Carryduff had over 900 calls. When lines opened for urgent appointments on Thursday 9 January, all appointments were gone within one minute.

Routine appoints a week in advance were booked out within three minutes.

Like many other GP practices across the region, lack of capacity means routine appointments have been virtually wiped out to facilitate urgent calls.

One senior doctor has said it is time to consider a health system similar to the model used in the Republic of Ireland where some patients pay for GP appointments. Dr Ursula Mason from the Royal College of GPs NI said: "This is a capacity issue all year round. Every single day of the week.

"One of our real worries is that there are people out there who feel that their problem is not classed as urgent or would not be classed as urgent but they have no other way of making their needs known.

"So the worry as we try to deal with this unprecedented winter demand that we have this year is that that squeeze happens on the routine and preventative stuff.

"The things that GPs do really well, if we were given the opportunity to do so. To try to keep people healthy, deal with long term conditions and deal with things that feel like they are not urgent but actually might be.

"We do not have the space to do that and the worry is that people are sitting at home feeling that they cannot phone or when they do phone there is no capacity and we are storing up problems for the future."

One senior GP, Dr Tom Black, has suggested the introduction of charges for a doctor's appointment, like in the Republic of Ireland, could be a way forward.

He said: "They have a good health service, we have a bad health service that is not coping, that is not funded, that is understaffed and cannot compete." As serious winter pressures persist, Executive Ministers have said they are "committed to working together to tackle the ongoing crisis".

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