Issues with ringing through for an appointment at Saundersfoot and Tenby GP surgeries need to be addressed, a local county councillor has highlighted in a report.

County Councillor for Saundersfoot’s south ward Cllr Chris Williams said that he recently attended a public meeting of the South East Pembrokeshire Community Health Network at the Regency Hall, which was a Q & A session with a panel of NHS staff, including - John Evans Hywel Dda UHB county director; Sonja Hay County General Manager, along with staff from Saundersfoot, Tenby and Kilgetty surgeries.

“The purpose of the meeting is for local residents to attend and ask relevant questions to the team, this was also a unique opportunity to hear the latest local health news and put your questions directly to the health professionals who can give you the answer you need,” said Cllr Williams.

“There were many questions asked and there was also a lot of praise for the service they had received locally at the centres, but one glaring issue was the appointment process, especially ringing through for an appointment. All are working hard on this and it’s definitely an area that needs improving.”

Cllr Williams explained that a ‘plus point’ coming for residents registered in Saundersfoot surgery, is that patients can now confirm their contact telephone numbers (landline or mobile) when they are contacting them.

“A lot more people have mobiles now and they can utilise this method of contact with text messages to communicate things such as ‘Flu campaign is starting’ or ‘we have a walk in clinic’ on such date,” he continued.

“The other point was the amount of work going into online services, but what about the patients that don’t want to use online service. The thinking behind this is if patients use the online service then this will certainly free up telephone or face to face contact.

“An example, if on any particular day, 20 patients use econsult for queries and 30 patients use My Health online (MHOL) to request a repeat prescription, this is then 50 interactions that are available for those patients wanting to phone or come in.

“Statistics will show in June they had 9,950 patients and received 940 MHOL requests. However 5,024 patients were issued with medication, and whilst not all of those would have been repeat prescriptions, a good proportion of them would be. This would also include those putting in a paper copy of their repeat request.”

Cllr Williams said the meeting was a ‘very productive insight’ into the challenges the NHS are facing in this part of the county, and that hopefully such public meetings will continue more frequently so that local residents can be heard.