What further exasperates the residents of the complex is that there is a GP surgery less than 100m from their building. Some are said to have moved in specifically because a doctor was nearby.
Even when they can get an appointment however, there is no guarantee it will be in the local practice. The surgery is part of a larger group of six surgeries, and people can be sent anywhere depending on availability. “I don’t drive,” said Ms Stretton. “So how do I get there – taxis? At £10 each?”
The cause of their frustration – as for many people around Telford – is Teldoc, a GP federation created in 2018.
“I had a case this morning, an 86-year-old lady we’ve been trying to get an appointment for, for over a week,” says Julie Vernon, who runs a company, Extra Help, that supports people with services such as cleaning and shopping.
“We phoned the GP again this morning at eight o’clock. Fully booked. So they asked us to phone 111. Phoned 111 and they called out an ambulance. The ambulance came, did an assessment and said, ‘you need a GP’. They phoned [the GP] and got one tomorrow. So that’s how many services have been involved just to get a GP appointment.”
Teldoc told us that since it was set up, there had been a large increase in the population of the town, as several housing estates had been constructed. However, it said there had been no funding to expand its services.
“Access to general practice is a national issue, and Telford is no exception,” it said in a statement. “We acknowledge that access to appointments can sometimes fall short of people’s expectations. However, we have and will continue our work to make improvements where necessary to enhance patient access to our services.”
