Are you concerned you or your child has Strep throat?


Strep throat is doing its rounds at the moment and this has increased the concerns of many patients and parents.

With this, comes increased pressure on our appointment system as, understandably, people want to see a GP or other clinician as soon as this is feasible.

However, most GP surgeries simply don’t have the capacity to see all those who feel they need to be seen, nor do they have the capacity to accept extra telephone consultations.

We apologise for our inability to see each and every person who believes they may have Strep throat, but we can’t give what we don’t have.

This morning alone, we received a minimum of 25 calls from patients or parents demanding an appointment as they were worried they might have Strep throat after all appointments were already allocated. We had reached full capacity.

A number of these patients became abusive towards our receptionists because we no longer had any appointments to offer. We expect there will be at least another 25 contacting us today to demand an appointment we can’t offer.

This is an unsatisfactory situation for patients, parents, and the practice alike but please remain courteous while our receptionists do the best they can. They don’t deserve the abuse they receive. Nor does anyone else in the practice.

Although we realise patients and parents may be scared, or worried, our hands are tied. If we have no appointments left for the day, there is nothing we can do other than to signpost to other services that can be of help.

What options are there if no appointments remain at the surgery?

  • If your problem is non-urgent, try again the next working day, and you can book either online or by phoning the surgery from 8 am on working days
  • If your problem is urgent for later the same day, you can contact i-Heart between 4 and 6 pm on working days on 01226 242419
  • If your problem is urgent, contact NHS111. Their advice can be to contact a local service within a certain time period. This is not the same as being seen within that time period. If they feel it is urgent enough to require an appointment, they will book this themselves
  • If your problem is life-threatening, don’t call us, contact 999, immediately
  • For very urgent problems you can also go to A&E. Generally this should be used only if there is an accident or an emergency. There will also be a significant wait in most cases. Before attending A&E it’s advisable to receive advice from NHS111 first