At School Lane Surgery, we believe in being open and transparent with our patients. Every month we publish our ‘SLS Snapshot’ to share some of the key measures we use to monitor how the surgery is performing. These help us benchmark our performance, identify trends and, most importantly, keep you informed about the work taking place behind the scenes.
As we reach the halfway point of 2026, we thought it would be a good opportunity to look back at the first six months of the year and share some of the highlights.
Between January and June 2026 our team answered 44,312 telephone calls, delivered 48,184 appointments, issued 201,917 prescription items, and processed more than 22,365 online patient requests. Behind every one of these figures is a member of our team working hard to support our patients.
One statistic we are particularly proud of is our Friends and Family Test feedback. Across the first six months of the year, an average of 96% of patients said they would recommend School Lane Surgery to their friends and family. We are incredibly grateful for your continued confidence and support.
We also know there are areas where we must continue to improve. Telephone demand remains extremely high and, whilst our average wait time across the first six months was under eight minutes, there are periods of exceptional demand where patients may wait longer. We continually review our systems and staffing to improve access wherever possible. In August we will have two new members joining the Reception Team.
During the first six months of the year, 97.4% of appointments were attended. We would like to thank the vast majority of patients who either attended their appointment or let us know when they no longer needed it. There were 1,237 appointments not attended, which does average out as just over 200 appointments each month that could potentially have been offered to another patient.
I am also pleased to share that two new GPs will be joining the School Lane Surgery team later this year. As they first need to complete their notice periods with their current employers, we will introduce them properly once they have started. This will increase our clinical capacity and help us provide more GP appointments for our patients.
Publishing these figures is part of our commitment to transparency. We believe our patients should be able to see both what is going well and the challenges we continue to face.
Only by understanding our performance can we continue to improve it.
Finally, we would like to thank our patients for their continued support and our dedicated team for everything they do every day.
We look forward to continuing to share our monthly snapshots throughout the rest of the year and keeping you updated on the work taking place across School Lane Surgery.
