Patients can book blood test appointments online or by telephone as an alternative to booking with the GP Surgery
Patients may book a blood test appointment at Whitegate Drive Health Centre or Fleetwood Wellbeing Centre by calling 01253 956719 between the hours of 9.30am-4pm, Monday to Friday, or by booking online at Sangix Appointments – Log in (myappointments.online)
We can also offer blood test appointments on an evening or weekend at the Cleveleys Group Practice, please call the surgery on 01253 204212 to arrange.
Non-urgent advice: Some changes to the service
As you will know, the NHS is under severe financial strain, and this is being felt here at The Thornton Practice just like everywhere else.
For several years we have had inadequate annual increases in our funding, and this has meant that we have had to take some very difficult decisions. The 2025/26 increase only covered increases to national insurance rises and the increase in the national minimum wage, but nothing else.
In addition, we have a local contract with Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB). This has been significantly changed across Lancashire and although the ICB tried very hard not to disadvantage the Fylde Coast, our income from this local contract will decrease.
Sadly, like others, the practice is no longer able to offer ‘nice to have’ services for which we are not funded.
One of these areas is hospital requested blood tests where the hospital is paid to do the tests as part of their ‘tariff’.
The picture is complicated; we are funded for some blood tests but not others, and, for some patients, we may be asking the hospital to take back responsibility for filling in blood forms, taking the blood test and interpreting the results.
We recognise that this will cause inconvenience and apologise for that, but we simply cannot afford to continue to do unfunded work.
If you are one of those affected, we apologise and hope that you will understand that this was not a decision that we took lightly. The alternative could have been a smaller team which none of us would want.
For several years we have had inadequate annual increases in our funding, and this has meant that we have had to take some very difficult decisions. The 2025/26 increase only covered increases to national insurance rises and the increase in the national minimum wage, but nothing else.
In addition, we have a local contract with Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB). This has been significantly changed across Lancashire and although the ICB tried very hard not to disadvantage the Fylde Coast, our income from this local contract will decrease.
Sadly, like others, the practice is no longer able to offer ‘nice to have’ services for which we are not funded.
One of these areas is hospital requested blood tests where the hospital is paid to do the tests as part of their ‘tariff’.
The picture is complicated; we are funded for some blood tests but not others, and, for some patients, we may be asking the hospital to take back responsibility for filling in blood forms, taking the blood test and interpreting the results.
We recognise that this will cause inconvenience and apologise for that, but we simply cannot afford to continue to do unfunded work.
If you are one of those affected, we apologise and hope that you will understand that this was not a decision that we took lightly. The alternative could have been a smaller team which none of us would want.