WITHIN the next five years 35 per cent of the GP workforce in the county will retire.

Director of primary care at the Herefordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, Lesley Woakes, spoke to Ross-on-Wye Town Council about how they are addressing the issue.

She said: "As you are probably aware the recruiting of GPs is a national problem, not just a Herefordshire problem. Only relatively recently Herefordshire has had a problem recruiting GPs - nationally it has been much longer.

"We have to do a bit of a long term plan. We need to train more doctors. We are working closely with the deanery to make more places available."

She said there is a very skilled GP workforce in the county and great training opportunities, but they need to be able attract new doctors to the county.

Ms Woakes said in the short term they are making the best use of the services available and making sure the patient sees the right clinician whether that is a nurse practitioner or a GP.

She added: "35 per cent of the GP workforce will be retiring in the next five years. There is a lot of work to ensure there are GPs in place around the county."

Ms Woakes was responding to a question from town councillor, David Ravenscroft, who said he knew residents found it difficult to get a doctor's appointment.

He added: "It is a great pity the Walk-In Centre in Hereford has closed. You would wait a little while but at least you could go there and get to see a doctor."

Ms Woakes was at the meeting to talk about a CCG listening exercise which has been taking place in Ross and the surrounding area to find out people's experience of healthcare and what is important to them.

She said: "In Ross what we have heard is actually the public want to know how to access and navigate the healthcare system, both in-hours and out-of-hours."

She said among other things, residents find the Minor Injury Unit's services very important and would like to see the hours extended.

Ms Woakes added: "The next stage is to draw up a plan for the area and come back with what we see as improvements."

Cllr Phil Cutter raised concerns about missed appointments at local surgeries.

He said at Pendeen Surgery there were 140 missed appointments in a month.

Ms Woakes said the CCG has introduced a text system to remind people of their appointments and they can reply with a text if they are unable to make it, but she said further work needs to be done.