Patients at three GP surgeries in Neath and Port Talbot are being told their practice websites could stop working with no warning.
The sites belong to Mount Surgery in Port Talbot, and to Castle Surgery and Victoria Gardens Surgery. Both are in Neath.
The company that runs them has gone into administration, Swansea Bay University Health Board says.
The practices have not been told when the sites will be switched off. If they get any notice at all, the health board says, it is expected to be “very short”.
That matters because the websites are where many patients order repeat prescriptions, request sick notes and send messages to the practice.
What to do at each surgery
Castle Surgery patients should email prescription and fit note requests to Castle.surgery@wales.nhs.uk if the site goes down.
Victoria Gardens patients should use Admin.vgsneath@wales.nhs.uk for the same requests.
Both Neath practices ask patients to put their full name, date of birth, address and a phone number in the body of the email.
Mount Surgery is asking patients to ring instead, on 01639 502792.
All three practices say they are sorry for the inconvenience and are working to keep disruption to a minimum.
The company behind it
The supplier is reported to be Silicon Practice, a Leicestershire firm that built and hosted websites for around 1,000 GP practices across the UK and ran the FootFall online consultation system.
Its administration notice was filed this month. Practices in London, Gloucestershire, Norfolk and Hertfordshire are among those that have already lost their sites, some of them taken down without warning.
NHS England has told patients in England to contact their practice by phone or in person if the website is unavailable. In Wales, the three Swansea Bay practices are the only ones the health board has identified.
Appointments, phone lines and the NHS Wales app are not affected by the websites going down.
If you use a different surgery
Other practices across Swansea and Neath Port Talbot are not on the health board’s list. If your surgery’s website does stop working, the advice is the same: phone the practice or go in.
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