UNPRECEDENTED DEMAND - November 2021

Like much of the NHS, The Cedars Surgery is currently facing unprecedented demand. This has been exacerbated in the last couple of years with two of our doctors retiring and one moving to work elsewhere and of course the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have been trying to recruit new staff throughout this time. Whilst we have been joined by ancillary staff, we have not been successful in recruiting new doctors. Of note there is a national shortage of GPs, and being on the coast we are more significantly affected in our ability to attract new doctors than might otherwise be. You may also notice we have increased our use of “locums” (temporary but fully qualified GPs) to try and compensate.

Unfortunately there are not enough of both locum or replacement staff and so we are having to prioritise clinical work to maintain standards and ensure safety.

In order to be able to continue to provide a safe service to our patients we are currently not accepting new applications (with the exception of newborn babies of families already registered with us) to join our patient list.

During this time we have stopped our commitments to other areas outside of primary care (for example medical cover to the rehabilitation ward at Deal Hospital), but the workload continues to increase.

We are now also stopping all private work.  None of the partners has any significant employment outside of the surgery already. However this means we are stopping Non-NHS work. This includes medicals, private letters/forms/documents. Private referrals where an NHS referral would have otherwise happened are not included (and are not charged), but any ancillary paperwork for these may not be able to be completed.

At this stage we do not know when these services will recommence. So as not to overwhelm the surgery when we do recommence, we will NOT be holding onto any forms etc to complete when we do restart, nor lists of people wishing to register here.

We appreciate that this may cause some people “hassle” for which we apologise. However patient safety has to be our priority and we do not wish to put this at risk.

Regards

The Cedars Surgery

PS - we will be honouring any already booked medicals or agreed non-NHS work