Thank you for your support over the last month and patience as we all settle into the new system.

Generally, we feel positive about the changes and have had some encouraging feedback.

A few issues have arisen, and we’d like to take this opportunity to highlight a few and how we’ve changed the processes in response, as well as the help we need from you.

1. We have updated the message you receive back when you submit a request as this was saying you will receive a response in 2-3 days. This meant we had some phoning up concerned about response times. To confirm, you will receive a response within the day so please do keep checking your anima account.

2. If you submit a request, there is no need to call the surgery as a back-up. Currently this is clogging up our phone lines and means wait times on the phones are much longer, and this is impacting on those patients who genuinely cannot use anima. It also means there are duplicate requests entered which closes the system down when it doesn’t need to.

3. Rather than everything being dealt with on the day, as this has led to a little confusion or where patients are not available when a request has been submitted and then miss appointments booked that same morning, we are going to move to sending back invite links for you to use to book your own appointments times within the available options.

If your need is urgent, you will be booked in on the day, but if the issue is not urgent, you will receive a link to book an appointment either within a week, or within 2 weeks.

4. While we love that you are using the system, for repeat prescriptions please use the NHS app instead, this gets your request directly to a clinician so is the most direct way of requesting.

5. Please remember that there is no advantage to phoning the surgery, you will no longer be booked in directly for a GP appointment if you call (except in exceptional circumstances of urgency). You can call for routine long term health condition appointments/nursing appointments etc. but try not to first thing in the morning, and bear in mind you may wait longer on the line.