A patient has criticised their GP surgery after they were unable to get a flu jab at their local practice.

A Congresbury patient of Mendip Vale Medical Group, who did not wish to be named, told the Times they received an email telling them they had to visit the Pudding Pie Lane surgery in Langford for their jab.

They said: “Once again there are no flu jabs in Congresbury or Yatton, how are the elderly people from these villages supposed to get to this surgery if they have no transport?

“There’s no bus service which goes anyway near the Langford surgery.

“Once again us pensioners are expected to find our own way to somewhere with no help from anyone.”

Mendip Vale said coronavirus has meant it is doing the initial flu clinics differently this year.

The group confirmed that so far around 6,500 of the 15,000 eligible patients have been vaccinated.

Its spokesman said: “We have done a Saturday clinic each week at a site since September 12 and our first clinic at Langford saw more than 2,500 patients having their jabs, which is well over twice what we did last year with 1,100.

“On September 19 we did a clinic as Castlewood in Clevedon with over 1,400 patients getting a jab, again well over twice what we did in the clinic the year before with 680 and as Sunnyside has only three parking spaces, we needed to find another venue in Clevedon to deliver.

“Last Saturday at St Georges we delivered 2,260 jabs compared to less than 1,000 the year before. We have another clinic this Saturday at Langford.”

Mendip Vale said because of the need to undertake jabs outside it is limited on options as the Yatton surgery has around 10 parking spaces.

Health bosses hope to get more than 10,000 patients vaccinated.

Its spokesman added: “We continue to deliver vaccinations to patients coming into the surgeries alongside their appointments for dressings or reviews, with more than 500 done in the last couple of weeks this way.

“Our clinicians have been out to care and residential homes to deliver flu vaccinations to residents, our colleagues at Sirona are working with us to ensure our housebound patients are visited and we continually look for opportunities to reach out and vaccinate as widely as we can.

“As with many healthcare providers the impact from Covid has meant we have needed to adapt to ensure we can provide the best service possible to our patients.”