Priory Gardens Surgery in Dunstable has announced temporary changes to how GP appointments are being released in response to recent junior doctor strike action.

The practice has advised that routine GP appointments for November are now fully booked. Due to uncertainty around further industrial action in December, all GP appointments for December will be released on the day at 8am and 1pm, alongside the usual morning sit-and-wait clinic. The practice hopes to return to its normal booking system in January.

These changes have been put in place to minimise last-minute cancellations and ensure patients receive clearer information about appointment availability during what is already a busy winter period for primary care.

A message from Priory Gardens Surgery

Louise Cole, Business Manager at Priory Gardens, explains:

 “As we are a large training practice, we had nine junior doctors take strike action over the past week. Unfortunately, they notify us on the day, which left us extremely short-staffed with no notice and cancelling a lot of appointments. With the possibility of further strikes, we needed to avoid a repeat of this situation so therefore in December changed our system to on-the-day appointment release.

To ensure patients are not cancelled at the last minute, we temporarily moved all GP appointments to same-day only. We also informed all our patients of this change so they were kept fully updated and reassured that any potential strike action in December, which is already a busy month due to staff annual leave, would not impact them unexpectedly.”

Healthwatch Central Bedfordshire will continue to monitor the situation and share further updates as they become available.

Diana Blackmun
Chief Executive Officer
Healthwatch Central Bedfordshire