Your GP practice is working together with other GP Practices (called a Primary Care Network or PCN) to make it easier for you to access your GP Practice.
A snapshot of 2025-26:
📅 470,000+ appointments
🩺 4,900+ extra doctor appointments
📞 453,000+ calls answered – 90% within 10 minutes
💻90% of online requests answered next working day
📱47,000+ patients registered on NHS App (68%)
👉 This means it should be quicker and easier to contact us and get the care you need.
⭐ What we improved in 2025–2026
📅More appointments
- We delivered all the extra appointments we promised – and more:
✅ Promised: over 4,300 extra appointments
✅ Delivered: nearly 5,000 extra appointments
- This included:
📊 4,041 appointments with doctors (over 800 hours!) during the busy winter months
🩺 956 same-day doctor appointments for urgent problems
👉 This helped more patients get care quickly when they needed it
Our 13 GP Practices delivered over 470,000 appointments throughout the year – that’s an average of more than 5 appointments per patient.
📞Faster on the phones
- We handled over 453,000 calls from patients
✅ Over 405,000 calls were answered within 10 minutes
- We improved performance during the year:
✅ Increased from 88% to almost 90% of calls answered within 10 minutes
📱Helping You Use the NHS App
- More patients have the NHS App than ever before:
📊 Over 47,000 patients registered on NHS App (68% of our patients)
⬆️ Up from 54% of patients the previous year
- More patients are now using the NHS App to contact their GP Practice:
📊 Over 2,800 requests were made through the NHS App – including sick notes, prescriptions, and appointments
⬆️ from 25% to nearly 50% of online requests were submitted using the NHS App
👩💼More Helpers Behind the Scenes
- Our admin support team helped more patients access care:
⏱ Delivered almost 3,900 hours of support
📞 Made over 35,000 calls to patients
📅 Booked over 12,000 appointments for proactive care
✅ This exceeded what we planned to deliver – helping more patients get the care they need
🧭Helping You Find the Right Help
- We trained reception staff from all GP Practices to improve care navigation – now they can support more patients to see the right professional, first time
- Nearly half of all appointments were with trained healthcare professionals such as:
- Pharmacists
- Physiotherapists
- Advanced Nurses
- Mental Health Nurses
- This year, Community Pharmacists delivered nearly 2,000 Pharmacy First consultations to treat a range of minor ailments.
👉 This helps free up GP appointments for patients who need them most
💻Faster replies online
- We received nearly 7,000 online requests from patients
✅ Over 5,700 online requests were responded to by next working day
- We improved during the year:
✅ From 66% to over 90% responded by next working day
❤️Extra Help for People Who Need It Most
- We improved continuity of care:
📊 1,743 patients identified as having complex health needs
✅ This is just over 2% of our patient population
- These patients now:
- Have alerts on their records
- Have been informed that we’re giving them more personalised care
- Are offered appointments with the same health professional whenever we can.
🗣 We’re Listening to You
We received over 1,000 responses to our Access Survey, following an extensive marketing campaign with over 100,000 text messages sent to patients
Residents gave us valuable feedback on three key subjects:
- Contacting their GP Practice: 68% were satisfied with how easy it is to contact their surgery during opening hours
- Booking appointments:
- 54% agreed they can book same day or next day appointments for urgent care
- 65% agreed they can book an appointment in advance for non-urgent care
- Online Services: 68% of those contacting their GP Practice online were satisfied with the service
We also collected over 6,300 Friends & Family Test from patients and have received a Positive rating of 89%.
🔷 Our plans for the year 2026–2027
📞Faster on the phones
We will make it quicker and easier to reach us:
✅ Keep answering at least 90% of calls within 10 minutes
⏱ Start improving faster response times so that:
- More calls are answered within 5 minutes
- We begin tracking calls answered within 2–5 minutes
📊 Monitor call waiting times every month and improve where needed
💻Better online access
We will:
✅ Keep responding to at least 90% of online requests by the next working day
📱 Keep increasing the number of patients using the NHS App
🤝 Offer support to patients who need help using online services
🧑⚕️Right care, first time
We will:
✅ Keep directing patients to the best person for their needs first time
📊 Increase the number of appointments with specialists and outside of normal GP hours
💊 Continue to use Pharmacy First to offer quicker help for common illnesses
📅More appointments
We will:
✅ Keep providing extra GP appointments, especially for urgent same-day care and during busy times, especially winter
📊 Monitor demand and increase capacity where needed
❤️Extra Help for People Who Need It Most
We will:
✅ Increase the number of patients prioritised for continuity of care to at least 3%
🎯 Aim to provide more appointments with the same healthcare professional
📋 Review and improve care for these patients throughout the year.
🗣 Listening and improving
We will:
✅ Organise a patient survey every year
🌍 Provide better translation and language options so we hear from everyone
📍 Organise at least 4 community outreach sessions each year
💬 Engage with more people in more meaningful ways to improve our response rate
📊 Use your feedback to improve our services
We will keep working to make it easier for all patients to access care when they need it.