A GP surgery has promised the pain will soon be over for patients who had to wait up to four weeks for an appointment as it struggled to recruit new doctors.

Newbury Street Practice in Wantage says it took months to fill three vacancies, reflecting a national crisis.

The situation was made worse because the practice has just taken on 4,000 extra patients following a merger with neighbouring Grove Health Centre in February.

Leading partner Dr Rhodri Davies, who like others has been working extra hours to keep his surgery functioning, said: "It has been a huge challenge.

"We've dealt with this problem thanks to all of the staff working incredibly hard and our patients' forbearance, but this is not a model for long-term health care.

"The workload we have is not sustainable. I couldn't keep this up for much longer."

Grove's sole partner, Dr Andrew Allen, joined Newbury Street for four months to ease the transition but left at the end of June.

With staff struggling to cope, the surgery implemented a doctor-triage system where every single patient call was individually assessed by a GP.

Urgent cases were booked to be seen on the same day but non-urgent patients have been offered appointments up to a month later.

The partners have managed to find three replacement GPs – the last two of which will start on September 5 – but said that was only possible because their practice is in an attractive, affluent part of the world.

Dr Davies said: "It is only because we have a nice town and nice facilities that we have been able to attract doctors.

"If you go to Swindon they have 40 per cent of places unfilled.

"This is a national problem and it's ongoing. There is no quick solution. We need to train adequate numbers of doctors because there don't seem to be enough coming through."

By the end of September the surgery hopes standard appointment waits will be down to a week again.

It is also recruiting a new "super nurse" – an acute care practitioner who will deal with urgent problems like respiratory infections on the day.

Newbury Street now has 15,500 patients. Church Street Practice, which is located next door in Wantage Health Centre in Mably Way, has 18,500.

By September 5, Newbury Street will have nine GPs plus the "super nurse", but that will be working without any wriggle-room.

That is why the two practices are now in the final stages of drawing up a plan to build a massive £4m expansion to Wantage Health Centre, doubling its size.

This will allow both GP practices to take an anticipated 12,000 new patients from the 5,500 homes planned for Wantage and Grove over the next 15 years.

The plans have gone to NHS England for final funding approval and the 12-month construction is hoped to start in 2017.

Meanwhile the patient participation groups from Church Street and Newbury Street are organising a health and wellbeing information advice day at Wantage Health Centre on Saturday, September 17, from 10.30am to 2.30pm. It will raise awareness of local services and get feedback and what else is required.