Abuse from patients at a doctors' surgery in north Powys has left some members of staff "frequently in tears".

Llanfyllin Medical Practice said it is experiencing "unacceptable" abuse every day from an increasing number of patients and have pleaded for the verbal aggression and physical threats to stop.

In a statement, practice partners said: "We are now at the stage where we have team members frequently in tears due to the rudeness and aggression of some patients, team members dread coming into work and facing a day of taking calls from patients who shout or abuse them.

"This is demoralising our team to the extent they no longer feel valued, appreciated and cannot face coming into work for another day of abuse."

The partners added that the practice is "under greater pressure than ever before" with more than 600 telephone calls every day, which is at least double what they would normally had received before the coronavirus pandemic.

"Our resources have not increased to meet this demand and the extra pressure is being absorbed by our already tired team.

"We are in the middle of delivering the largest flu campaign ever at the practice, with vaccine supply issues that are out of our control making this incredibly challenging. Our team who already work all week have worked on their weekends to deliver these vaccines as quickly and efficiently as they can to patients and to be abused whilst doing so is utterly demoralising."

Patients who are verbally abusive towards staff risk being immediately removed from the practice list.

Doctors' surgeries in Welshpool, Knighton and Bishop's Castle have also pleaded for kindness after being subjected to abuse from people they are trying to help.

In August, the Royal College of General Practitioners responded to reports of abuse towards GP teams, calling it "completely unacceptable".

Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “The vast majority of patients appreciate that GPs and our teams right across the country are doing the best we can and treat our staff with respect, but we understand their frustrations when they can’t get a GP appointment or face long waiting times to get through to the surgery.

“The real issue is that we have a huge shortage of GPs and our workforce is not big enough to manage the needs of an ageing and growing patient population with increasingly complex needs. This was the case before the pandemic and it has only been further exacerbated by the events of the past year."