GPs say they are tackling an "unprecedented rise in demand" for their services as the Vale of York emerges from lockdown - but they want to make it clear they never closed during the pandemic.

Doctors are asking local communities to support them and relieve the pressure by making the right choices about their care, as they deal with a backlog of demand from patients who were reluctant to contact their practice during lockdown, as well as those waiting for delayed hospital appointments and treatment.

Dr Abbie Brooks, a GP partner at Priory Medical Group’s Park View Surgery in York, said that recent communication to GPs from NHS England, reported via the mainstream media, might lead patients to believe they haven’t been seeing any patients in our surgeries.

" This is simply not true,” she said. "A lot of people have asked when we will re-open but the answer I tell everyone, we never closed.

"The last 14 months have been difficult for all of us. From a personal perspective it has been one of the busiest and most challenging periods of my working life.”

Dr Chris Stanley, a GP partner at Haxby Group in York, said: "GP practices across the Vale are facing an unprecedented rise in demand – this is set against a backdrop of recovery from the Covid pandemic, the largest NHS vaccination campaign in history -75 per cent of which has been delivered by GP practices and their teams - and a diminishing GP workforce.

"Despite these huge challenges, GP practices are responding and providing a safe and quality service for our residents.

"People may also have longer to wait to see their GP than they are used to, but we still want patients to come forward with any symptoms that they are concerned about, particularly those symptoms that can be signs of early cancer.

His fellow Haxby Group GP partner, Professor Mike Holmes, said his practice had never closed its doors and now had more 'patient encounters' than in the period before the pandemic.

"We have looked after those who were shielding, the most vulnerable in our community in care homes and adapted to new ways of working to ensure the service kept going," he said.