I WOULD like to apologise on behalf of the surgery for the delays faced by patients who were booked in to the Flu Clinic at the new surgery on Saturday, October 16.

We made a mistake with the time intervals and this did not allow for each vaccination.

Patients were arriving for their vaccine faster than we could vaccinate, so the queues built up.

Initially I thought it might have been due to patients taking early advantage of the walk-in clinic we were offering from 11am, but this was not the case.

We are very sorry for the upset and inconvenience this caused to patients who were caught up in the queue.

We were helped by two qualified volunteer vaccinators who offered their help when they saw the queues and we are very grateful for their support.

The staff who ran the flu clinic on the day were doing their best to get patients vaccinated.

I can assure you this was a programming mistake and not their fault.

During the morning clinic more than 770 patients were vaccinated.

For future clinics we will review the timings to make sure the next clinic runs smoothly. Any patients who decided not to wait will be contacted as soon as we have another clinic set up.

Finally, I was very disappointed to hear that there were a number of people who were abusive towards surgery staff on the day. Even worse, staff reported having been contacted at home and being shouted at outside work by people who were unhappy.

We did make a mistake and we are very sorry for the problems we created, but we will not accept abuse of our staff and where necessary we will be taking action against the perpetrators.

We will announce new dates for clinics very shortly.

Richard Ward

Practice Manager

Redlands Primary Care

Redlands

Joseph Locke Way

Crediton