A GP practice in Bordon has been forced to cut its opening hours from next month as a national shortage of doctors impacts on town patients.

The number of GPs working for the Riverside Partnership - which incorporates the Woolmer Surgery, in Forest Road, Bordon, and the Riverside Kelsey Surgery, in Station Road, Liss - has reduced from five to four following the departure of Dr Laura Hems, who worked solely at Woolmer.

Attempts to replace Dr Hems over the past three months have been unsuccessful, reflecting a national problem in GP recruitment.

As a consequence, Woolmer Surgery’s “one-year temporary solution” to the problem is to reduce its opening hours on three afternoons a week from next month.

The Partnership has applied to both NHS England and the NHS South Eastern Hampshire Clinical Commissioning Group, as the local commissioners of GP services, to close from 2pm onwards on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for 12 months to get around the staffing shortfall. These new hours of business will start in February.

The Riverside Partnership has “far more patients” registered at Riverside Kelsey than at Woolmer and is therefore “unaffected by the plans”.

GP partner Dr Charles Dawson explained: “We have been advertising to replace Dr Hems since October but have so far, unfortunately, been unable to find anyone suitable.

“This has clearly not been an easy decision or one we wanted to take. But our biggest priority is to provide safe, efficient care for all our patients, and we believe this is the best way forward to ensure that we can continue to do that.

“Woolmer is not closing - it will still accept new patients. The practice will continue as normal apart from the three afternoons, during which time our full range of medical services will still be available at our sister site in Liss.

“We understand that this will disappoint, upset and inconvenience some patients and we sincerely apologise for that. But we are doing all we can to mitigate the situation, including looking at the possibility of working closely with some of our neighbouring practices to share resources.

“We are writing to all our patients to explain the situation. There is a national shortage of doctors trained or wishing to become GPs and pressures on GP practices have increased because of the demand for appointments.

“Woolmer will still be open five mornings and two afternoons a week so this will not affect most patients registered there. If a patient cannot get to Liss at those times, and has an urgent clinical need on those afternoons when we are closed, then a home visit can be arranged.

“We hope that in a year’s time the issue may have been resolved and we can return to a full weekly service, either by recruiting a new GP or working far more closely with neighbouring practices.”

The surgery is hosting a patient information meeting on Friday, January 22, at 12pm at Woolmer Surgery at which people can ask questions or raise concerns.

The announcement came during a bad week for the NHS with Tuesday’s junior doctors’ strike.

And the three hospitals to which patients from Whitehill and Bordon are referred - the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guild-ford, the Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital in Basingstoke and the Queen Alexandra in Cosham - were all affected.

Junior doctors at the Royal Surrey County Hospital joined tens of thousands of their colleagues nationwide on Tuesday taking industrial action over what Farnham MP and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt claimed was an “unnecessary” contract dispute.

Striking doctors joined an all-day picket line outside the hospital’s main entrance, taking it in turns to protest every 45 minutes in groups of six. Emergency care was unaffected by the industrial action. The Royal Surrey had promised to put a “robust contingency plan” in place. In a statement released on Wednesday, it said the industrial action had caused minimal disruption to patients and services and it had kept as many appointments as possible.

Chief executive Peter Dunt said: “A great team effort ensured that there was minimal disruption to patients, with just 151 of 1,600 outpatients appointments postponed and 15 operations affected.

“For those patients who were affected, I would like to assure them that we will reschedule their appointments as soon as possible.”

Elsewhere in Hampshire, two operations were postponed as a result of the action at the Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital, where four out of 57 scheduled outpatient clinics were also cancelled.

And more than 50 doctors were part of a demonstration at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Cosham, where it is thought around 40 operations had to be cancelled because of the strike, but administrators say critical services kept running uninterrupted.

Last Tuesday’s walk-out from 8am went ahead after negotiations were paused last week on a new contract that junior doctors fear lacks contractual safeguards on safe working and proper recognition for those working unsocial hours.

Both sides in the conciliation talks with Government arbitration service ACAS, between the British Medical Association, NHS Employers and the Department of Health, agreed that the discussions, while “constructive”, were not enough to call off last week’s planned action by the BMA.

The talks will resume on Thursday. If these do not succeed, the BMA is planning strike action from 8am on Tuesday, January 26, to 8am on Thursday, January 28, when only emergency cover will be provided, and a full withdrawal of labour from 8am to 5pm on Wednesday, February 10.

It has been warned that increasing numbers of young and newly qualified doctors travelling to work abroad, combined with increasing strain on the NHS, will exacerbate the GP shortage over coming year.