A Medway GP has explained why practices will be closed this Monday bank holiday due to the Queen's funeral – even though he'd rather his stayed open.

Dr Julian Spinks said his practice will be one of many that will shut, but measures have been put in place for those needing urgent medical care.

The decision has been announced this week and has seen many hospitals in England calling off appointments scheduled for Monday.

Some hospitals have said they will be operating as usual, while others have said that they will postpone some non-urgent appointments.

Hospital trusts are expected to make their own decisions around appointments based on staffing levels and whether or not local transport will mean patients and staff are unable to attend.

Dr Spinks has explained why his surgery will be closing on the day of the Queen's funeral.

He said: "Our practices are going to be closing and we have certain reasons why.

"Some of the practices are actually in buildings called Healthy Living Centres, and the people who run those centres have said they will be shutting. So we don't have a choice in that sort of situation.

"What will happen is that this is going to work like most bank holidays. There will still be emergency cover, the out-of-hours services will be running, some of the vaccination clinics will still keep going.

"It is a tricky situation. We realise it's difficult. Most practices are actually shuffling appointments around, so people will still get their appointment, albeit perhaps delayed by a day or two.

"But those with real emergencies, yes, you'll be able to get seen."

He added: "If I had the choice, I personally would stay open, but one of the problems is general practice doesn't sit on its own.

"We have things like outpatients departments in hospitals closing, we have pathology labs closing, so we can't get urgent or routine blood tests done.

"So we'd be in a situation where you are sitting there not being able to do anything apart from seeing the patient.

"It is a tricky thing. Bank holidays are always a problem.

"We've just gone through the August bank holiday and the whole world doesn't fall apart because of that because we plan around it.

"It's just we've had a shorter time to do that now."

Some patients have expressed concern about their appointments being postponed online, and the GP explained the turnaround will vary from practice to practice and how their appointment systems work.

"Sadly, in some practices where they're massively overloaded on demand, they may have appointments booked up for a week or two, but they're going to have to take into account the need of the people whose appointment's being cancelled.

"Because if you do have not necessarily a super urgent problem, but something that needs to be seen soon, then we'll have to try and fit them in," he said.

However, there are measures put in place to anyone in need of urgent medical attention.

He explained: "If you've got something that's arisen on that day, that you feel cannot wait until the surgery is reopen, then you'll need to seek advice.

"You do this by calling NHS 111, they do make an assessment and if you need to be seen urgently, they can put you through to the out-of-hours GP services and arrange you to go to an A&E walk-in centre.

"And if it's really serious, they can send an ambulance out to you. So we have got things in place."