THE angry daughter of a patient who was turned away from her GP surgery after being told “there are no doctors” has raised fears over “under-pressure” services.

Sarah Bays, of Hall Road, Tiptree, is worried her village surgery is too stretched to serve the population.

Her 74-year-old mother was left without an appointment when she visited Tiptree Medical Centre at 8am on Monday.

She spent 30 minutes queueing in a bid to see her doctor, only to be told there were none available.

Surgery bosses deny Mrs Bays’ mum’s claim but said they were unable to offer patients routine appointments.

Mrs Bays, whose mum suffers from joint pain, said: “I spoke with my mother when she returned and she said the receptionist’s words were ‘there are no GPs today’.

“She was not told there were no appointments, and generally if you get there at 8am you would get to see someone. Apparently there were lots of people queuing to be told the same thing - surely they could have had a notice up.

“It is bad enough that the 11,000 residents of Tiptree were left without a doctor, but why were people allowed to queue up for up to 30 minutes to be told this? Surgeries are at breaking point everywhere.”

She added: “The only thing my mother can do is come back the next day and try again, and then try once more if that fails.”

The Gazette contacted the surgery and a receptionist said doctors were at the surgery throughout the day, but no routine appointments were available.

She added: “We will always tell patients exactly why they cannot get an appointment.

“We did have doctors at the surgery on that day, but there were no appointments available.”

Gill Scott, deputy practice manager, denied the surgery was under pressure and said resources were not stretched.

She said: “We are very well resourced here for all of our patients and I do not feel we are under pressure.

“We have a full complement of GPs and an on-call GP for emergencies.”