Patients 'swore at staff' working at a GP practice which is "working way beyond capacity", it was claimed.
Staff at a Burscough GP surgery claim patients trying to get appointments have been abusive towards staff, Lancashire Live reports.
Workers from the Stanley Court Surgery took to Facebook on Friday morning (May 21) after facing angry and aggressive calls from patients unhappy at a lack of appointments.
They pleaded for people to act with more kindness and issued a reminder that the only reason for the lack of appointments was high demand.
Although there has been a shift to telephone-based triage, doctors and nurses at GP practices have continued to see patients in person throughout the pandemic.
The post said: “A little message to say that our staff are working very hard but cannot magic appointments out of thin air. They have already been SWORN AT TODAY and PHONES SLAMMED DOWN on them.
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“We will not tolerate this towards our staff and abusive patients will unfortunately be removed from our GP list.
“PLEASE BE KIND.
“We are working way beyond capacity with more than the normal number of appointments and it is still not enough. This is due to demand and not because we are sitting here with nothing to do.
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"This demand is happening all around the country.”
Earlier this month, NHS England issued new guidance to practices which says GP patients must now be offered face-to-face appointments if that is their preference.
In a letter to practices published, NHS England said practices should ‘respect preferences’ for face-to-face care ‘unless there are good clinical reasons to the contrary’, such as the patient displaying Covid symptoms.
