HARD-PRESSED doctors at Wellington Medical Centre are set to review their telephone appointment booking system.

So-called ‘telephone triage’‚ introduced as patient demand for appointments outstripped the number available, allows doctors to give advice over the phone or arrange a face-to-face appointment, according to medical need.

Practice manager Lydia Daniel-Baker said: “We know the current telephone triage system is not perfect and we are monitoring the situation very closely.

“We have received positive and negative feedback in equal measure regarding the introduction of this system.

“The GPs, however, intend to continue to operate telephone triage for the time being and plan to undertake a formal review early in June 2016.”

She said that over the Easter holidays a shortage of locums had left the practice short-staffed for four weeks and the telephone triage system was introduced to help cope with patient demand, which increases around Bank Holidays.

She added that doctors have to undertake several hours of administrative tasks each day, such as issuing prescriptions, patient correspondence, requesting laboratory tests and so on. They also work long hours – the first doctor arrives at 7.15am and the last leaves at about 8.30pm.

Looking at the wider picture, doctors are struggling, like many across the country, to cope with a rising workload caused by an ageing population, higher patient expectations about care and what they feel is underfunding, among other factors.

Mrs Daniel-Baker added: “GPs are under unprecedented pressure and there is an increasing gap between workload demands and their capacity to deliver services. We are aware that as a result of this increased demand it is more and more difficult to get an appointment to see a doctor.”

To ease the problem doctors are urging patients to visit their pharmacy, which can offer advice on treatments for minor injuries and ailments; to keep basic items like paracetamol, plasters and antiseptic cream in their bathroom cabinets; and to visit the NHS Choices website for health advice and to check symptoms, among other ways of improving self-care. Mrs Daniel-Baker said: “Most people would not ask to see a doctor with a cold, cough, minor stomach upset, headache, minor cut or bruise but a growing number of patients do. When it is safe and appropriate we would like these patients to take more control of their treatment and healthcare through self-care.”

Patients are also being urged not to ask doctors for sick notes for the first seven days of sick leave when the patient can fill in an Employees Statement of Sickness form instead; letters from school relating to the sickness of a child; passport forms; Blue Badge forms and letters for Housing departments.

Wellington Medical Centre says not enough has been invested in general practice for at least a decade. Some 72 surgeries closed last year in England due to doctors retiring early or leaving for jobs abroad – and it is hard to recruit and retain new doctors because of mounting workloads, falling morale and increased stress levels.

NHS chiefs in England last month announced a five-year plan that will see an extra £2.4bn a year ploughed into GP services by 2020 – a rise of 14% when inflation is taken into account.