One in six Kent GP surgeries shut at lunchtime in the last financial year, despite patient backlogs.

Kent's NHS has revealed that 16.6% of 192 practices in the county declared they closed for lunch from April 2020 to April 2021.

Patients were not allowed into the surgeries and could not talk to anyone on the phone during these hours, according to Kent and Medway Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

It comes as concerns have been raised by Kent county councillors about problems booking appointments.

Sevenoaks West county councillor Nick Chard (Con) said the 26 closures that were officially reported "did not ring true" as he suggested there were more.

He said: "I just can't believe that one in six practices in Kent close for lunch because that is not my experience."

His comments were made in front of Kent NHS representatives and during KCC's health scrutiny committee meeting on Wednesday (Mar 2).

Around 1.8 million people live in Kent, with latest figures showing that 752,333 appointments were carried out in the county in December last year.

This is in addition to GP teams giving more than 300,000 vaccinations and boosters in the same month.

Since August 2021, the CCG says there have been more face-to-face appointments per month in Kent than before the initial wave of the pandemic in March 2020.

Cllr Perry Cole (Con) urged the CCG to work with the surgeries that are not offering lunchtime services after sharing an "irritating" personal story.

The Swanley county councillor said: "I was so delighted when the local surgery adopted this new cloud-based phone system. I could get through.

"I am number 12 in the line. After 58 minutes, I reached number one and at the stroke of one I get disconnected, which is mildly irritating."

He added: "I rang back at 2.15pm when the surgery opens to be greeted with a different message telling me the surgery was closed for training."

The General Medical Services (GMS) require GP practices to deliver services within core hours, ‘as appropriate to meet the reasonable needs of patients’.

Core hours for GP practices are between 8am and 6.30pm, Monday to Friday, excluding weekends and bank holidays.

Kent NHS bosses said lunchtime closures would be examined more closely.

"We will be undertaking a further process this year to establish whether or not that position around lunchtime closures is the same or a change."

Bill Millar, who is the Kent and Medway CCG's director of primary care, which oversees GPs, said: "Given the pressures that GPs were under last year, we have not explored that.

"We will be undertaking a further process this year to establish whether or not that position around lunchtime closures is the same or a change."