11/01/2017 Look East (West)

Up to five weeks wait to see a GP - demand surges in surgeries

A court hears a woman may not have been dead when her body

Brexit fears for Cambridge University as admissions

Look East has learned patients in this region are facing long waits

While it varies practice by practice, our snapshot survey

found that for a non-urgent slot in Milton Keynes the average wait

But in Northamptonshire patients will wait up to two weeks and it's

In fact one practice there told us it can go up to five weeks.

Waseem Mirza has been to see how some GP surgeries

Trevor Whitby survived a heart attack.

The 70-year-old grandfather now needs regular checkups

Today, he's being seen at a duty clinic by nurse Kim Richardson at

Are you happy to have your injection?

Nurse Richardson is one of a bank of 20 nurses here.

Four of them are paired to each doctor, helping to lighten

Two years ago, we introduced nurse led clinics.

What that allowed us to do was to employ teams of four

That allowed us to increase the number of appointments

which were available by using not only the GP's skills but also

the skills that are often overlooked within the nursing team.

On average, Look East has been told patients in Cambridge

and Peterborough face a wait to see their own GP of up

In one case, a surgery claimed its patients were facing

Much has been said of the winter challenge facing the NHS,

some calling it the worst winter ever faced by the health service.

And it's our A departments like here at Hinchingbrooke Hospital

that have been dealing with a higher than usual number of

But they're not alone in facing up to the winter challenge.

Faced with a tightening budget, fewer resources and more patients

through their doors, it's the front line of GP surgeries

The group that's responsible for making decisions on local health

care say GPs are under more strain in a challenging financial climate.

At the moment we have a real shortage of GPs, the demand has

massively increased so we are doing another 70 million consultations

over the last five years and actually we haven't seen a rise

Sometimes it can take more than a week in order to speak

to someone on the phone, so that's frustrating.

They had said go to your doctor within a couple of days and check

out this, that and the next thing, and it is worrying if

They put us on a waiting list and they said maybe a week or two

or maybe three or four or six weeks, but they gave us no

North Bank practice says it is pioneering a new way

of working, putting nurses at the front line.

It's just one way in which the very idea of a GP surgery is having

to change in order to survive under growing pressure.

Waseem Mirza, BBC Look East, Wisbech.

Well, the Department for Health has a target to recruit

5,000 more GPs by 2020 - and put more money into

Earlier, I asked Dr Jonathan Ireland from Northamptonshire's Local

Medical Committee if GPs are willing to work outside of core hours.

Again, it is about resources and capacity in the system.

You have to ask real questions about how much work

Most GPs do do what are called extended hours in the evenings

or at weekends, which is funded additionally because of course GPs

are responsible for the whole funding of their practice,

including their staffing at their premises and all

The Department for health has promised 5000 more GPs by 2020.

That will help, won't it, or is it achievable in three years?

I think many people think it's not achievable that to train

that many GPs and then, well, train that many doctors

and then attract them into general practice is a big ask.

More importantly in my view will be to make sure that the promises that

have been given in the GP review of better funding for the actual

budgets for practices as well as the premises,

more sustainable workload and also there are efficiency ways of working

All those things need to be carried out to make the job more attractive

so that people actually want to go into general practice.

What would make GPs' lives easier, just in the next few months?

I think what we need to see is a more sustainable workload,

so to some extent it is about making the plans that are in place

reasonable without knocking general practice over at the very moment

when general practice is meant to pick up the pieces and help

Next tonight, the jury at the Helen Bailey murder trial has

heard that she may still have been alive when she was

Her body was found in the tank beneath her Hertfordshire home three

months after she was reported missing by her partner Ian Stewart.

Forensic pathologist Doctor Nathaniel Cary,

the first witness to be called in this case.

He performed the postmortem on Helen Bailey's body

when it was discovered in a cesspit at her home in Royston three months

He told the court he couldn't be sure how she died.

He said she was found fully clothed but barefoot,

We heard the cold water had slowed decomposition

and that there was no evidence of any injuries

But we heard in this case a sleeping drug called Zopiclone was found

It had been prescribed to the accused, Ian Stewart, in January.

Doctor Cary said that although he couldn't rule out

the possibility Helen Bailey was alive when she entered

the water, the drug may have made it easier to kill her

Doctor Cary said the drug had been going into Helen Bailey's system

The court also heard levels of Zopiclone found in her hair

suggested she ingested the drug on multiple occasions.

The prosecution allege Ian Stewart had plotted to sedate

and kill his fiancee in order to inherit much of her

Ian Stewart denies murder, perverting the course of justice,

fraud and preventing a lawful burial.

We also heard today that postmortem tests on Helen Bailey's

dog proved inconclusive in finding a cause of death.

Tomorrow we expect to hear from Helen Bailey's brother.

This case is expected to last around seven weeks.

Kate Bradbrook, BBC Look East, at St Albans Crown Court.

More than 200 people met in Cambridge tonight to discuss

Many Europeans living in the city say they're worried

about losing their right to live and work in the UK.

Earlier in the day, it was revealed there's been a 14% drop

in the number of European undergraduates applying to study

Seven months on and there's still an air of uncertainty in Cambridge.

The vote to Leave the EU took many by surprise

and at a packed meeting tonight, EU nationals living in the largely

pro-Remain city made their feelings known.

Organised by the grassroots campaign Cambridge Stays,

it was clear the government's reluctance to publish

a Brexit plan had left many with unanswered questions.

I would say I am concerned and confused as to what the situation

is going to be formally as a German citizen living in the UK and I have

come here really to get more clarity about what my options are.

I'm very worried indeed because I'm thinking,

all this 40, 50 years, paying tax, national insurance

and everything else, is this all of a sudden

Am I going to be chucked out just because my face don't fit?

I was born in 1991, so I grew up as a European and I grew up

with the feeling that I could move anywhere in the UK and I will be

fine and I would be welcomed, and so Brexit was quite a shock.

There was concern also today at how Brexit is affecting our universities

with MPs taking evidence at a public hearing in Oxford.

We've seen at Cambridge a 14% reduction in the number

of applications from the European Union.

From what the University can tell, many EU students are thinking twice

Students are worried about the uncertainty of funding,

students are worried about anti-immigrant sentiment

and they are also worried about loss of possible collaboration with EU

Reassurance will come from the Prime Minister and what she'll

But that may take months, if not years.

Mousumi Bakshi, BBC Look East, Cambridge.

Controversial plans to build a new canal in Daventry have

It'll be a one and half mile extension from the Grand Union Canal

Daventry District Council says the scheme will include

new waterfront bars and caf s which will encourage tourism

That's all from me - but with snow on the way let's get

We've got some very cold, potentially wintry weather

heading our way over the next few hours and at much colder

Under clear skies, temperatures dropping to low single figures,

so the risk of a touch of frost in sheltered spots, despite the fact

And tomorrow's weather's going to be shaped by this weather system coming

There is a yellow warning out for this part of the country

But we start the day on a dry and potentially bright note.

It will quickly start to turn cloudy with a spell of rain

This could be heavy in places and as that milder air hits the cold

air, the potential is there for some of this to turn to sleet or snow.

It is likely to be quite slushy because it will be falling on wet

ground but the possibility is still there of some

accumulation and a cold day with a northerly wind,

The national weather's coming up, here's the outlook.

A bitterly cold day for Friday with some strong northerly winds.

start to the weekend. Time for the national weather prospects if you

are on the move. Good evening, a lot going on with

the weather in the next few days, numerous weather warnings in for so

buried in mind if you have travel plans. Lots of isobars on the chart

overnight which means it will be windy for all. The strongest winds

in Scotland, lots of wintry showers with snow getting down to

increasingly low levels and some wintry showers in Northern Ireland

and northern England. A cold night for Northern England, particularly

in more rural spots, frosty and I see for some and some of the snow

really blowing around over higher ground in Scotland. Strong wind and

further snow to take us into tomorrow. It may well make for some

tricky travelling conditions. The forecast for tomorrow in