Unfortunate levels of abuse aimed at those that work at a Pembrokeshire medical centre has led to a staff exodus, leading to a local county councillor stating - “Every patient has the right to complain but please don’t be abusive!”

Staff shortages have added extra pressures to Saundersfoot Medical Centre, with County councillor for the seaside village’s south ward, Cllr Chris Williams recently hearing that morale is low at the facility, due to an unfortunate level of abuse aimed at those that work there at times.

Cllr Williams said that he recently had a meeting at the facility situated on Westfield Road, with staff and fellow county councillors for the area - Cllr Alec Cormack and Cllr Alistair Cameron.

“This was a difficult one as the meeting was very honest and they described the pressures that they are all experiencing at Saundersfoot and morale is very low,” explained Cllr Williams.

“They have been hit with staff shortages along with reception staff who leave after a short time and at certain times recently, there have only been one or two staff on the end of the phone.”

In one month alone this year, the facility has lost two reception staff, an advanced paramedic along with a dispensary member.

“I will say that they are doing a very difficult job and unfortunately the level of abuse has been far too much for some of the staff!” he continued.

“I appreciate that the waiting time isn’t good enough but hopefully going forward we can all show a level of calm and respect to all the staff who are working extremely hard in very challenging times.

“Every patient has the right to complain but please don’t be abusive!”

Other updates from the surgery are eConsult, which is now live and can be accessed via the website: saundersfootmedicalcentre.gpwales.com

“There will be a limit to the number of eConsults that they accept in a day to start with, but the plan is to gradually increase as the service develops,” remarked Cllr Williams

“Two new reception staff members will be starting at the Centre and there will be training time before they are up and running.

“They have also made the decision to adjust the number of calls that can be held, ie people waiting in the phone queue for a lengthy period of time.

“Whilst the number of people ringing won’t change, this way they shouldn’t be held in a queue for any significant amount of time. This is a very recent introduction and they are still assessing what difference this makes.

“There is also a card machine now available that allows patients to pay for certain services, such as HGV medical reports.

“What hasn’t helped the situation is the fact that there were 126 missed appointments that could have gone back into the system for those who needed them.

“On May 3 between 8 and 9 am, there were 381 calls made to the surgery. There were over 11,000 calls made to the surgery in April!

“During April over 25,000 items were dispatched by the dispensary team. What’s not taken into account is the time to dispense items for the vulnerable residents into individual trays.”

Cllr Williams reminded members of the public that they can also pop into their local community pharmacist for treatment for many ailments, such as - athletes foot, cold sores, conjunctivitis, constipation, diarrhoea, indigestion, mouth ulcers, nappy rash, sore throats and verrucas.