We regret to inform our patients that we have temporarily suspended the online function for patients to book their own blood tests. We wish to assure you that this is a short-term solution to help us make sure that we only book blood tests that are needed and appropriate, whilst we face capacity challenges.
We understand that patients who have used the online tool for booking blood tests before will be disappointed with this temporary suspension of the self-serve provision and we sincerely apologise for any inconvenience.
The demand for phlebotomy appointments currently out-strips our capacity at the Practice and we are working hard to meet the demand for both GP requested, and hospital requested blood tests.
In light of these challenges, we have reviewed the current bookings Vs capacity and noted that many self-booked blood tests were actually not required or were duplicated, leading to non attendance and wasted appointments. It is for this reason that we have taken the difficult decision to manage blood appointments via invitation or SMS link for the time being.
In May 2025, we recorded 127 non attended blood appointments, which equates to 18 wasted hours of phlebotomist time. We can’t afford to waste a single appointment and feel that this step will enable us to ensure that the appointments we offer, are appropriate and required.
We would advise that anyone who needs to have hospital blood tests for their condition monitoring, please consider taking your blood forms to Melton Community Hospital, who have recently advertised that they have increased their capacity at this site.
Patients who have blood tests at the request of the GP should continue to attend appointments provided by the Practice.
We would like to assure all of our patients that we are working hard to continue to recruit to our fantastic phlebotomy team and will reinstate the online functionality as soon as possible.