A SOMERSET doctors’ surgery is restricting the number of new patients who can register with it due to ongoing staff shortages.

Burnham and Berrow Medical Centre lies on the B3140 Love Lane, just over the road from the town’s community hospital and a short walk from the town centre and seafront.

The surgery has experienced a huge increase in demand for its services over the last 12 months, and its ability to respond to this has been hampered by non-covid staff sickness and the timings of annual leave.

To combat this, the surgery has been given the authority to restrict which new patients can and cannot register with its GPs, treating each potential new patient on a case-by-case basis.

The Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has also given the surgery the power to limit the number of appointments it can offer for non-urgent care.

An update on the surgery’s fortunes was published ahead of a meeting of the CCG’s commissioning committee on Wednesday morning (September 29).

Tanya Whittle, the CCG’s deputy director for contracting, said this was “a particularly challenging time for the practice” and that everything possible was being done to ease their predicament.

She said in her written report: “They are facing a shortage of clinical and reception staff due to non-covid related staff sickness and pre-booked annual leave.

“Patients can continue to access the practice in the usual way – but due to the high volumes of phone calls, it is recognised that patients have been experiencing difficulty accessing the practice and it has taken longer for calls to be answered.

“The practice has had a 27 per cent increase in patient contacts from July 2020 to July 2021. This is in addition to the increasing volumes of administration that comes as a result of the pandemic, and the need to support the NHS as a whole around waiting times and both urgent and routine access.

“We are working closely with the practice to help resolve these issues as quickly as possible, working alongside our wider health and care partners.”

To address the issues, the CCG has approved a “temporary list closure” – meaning the practice can consider new patient applications on a case-by-case basis, rather than simply having to accept all new or transferring patients.

Under this system, the medical centre can decline to accept a new patient where there are “reasonable, non-discriminatory grounds” for doing so – for instance, there is another surgery near to them which could accept them.

Ms Whittle said this measure had been in place since August 31, but declined to reveal how long it would needed.

She added: “The centre is needing to limit the number of appointments available for non-urgent care to enable them to safely manage urgent patient requests.

“This action allows the practice to focus resources on providing a safe service for its current patients and make progress against an agreed action plan.”