APPOINTMENTS at Tranent Medical Practice will be restricted for three days as NHS Lothian carries out a major upgrade of its IT systems.

The work, which will take place at the start of April, will mean the centre will be unable to access patients' medical records or process orders for repeat prescriptions, for a short period.

The practice has apologised to patients in advance for any inconvenience caused by the work to replace ageing computer hardware.

They said the upgrade, which will provide faster and more reliable access to medical information for the practice going forward, is scheduled to be carried out between Wednesday, April 4, and Friday, April 6.

A spokesperson for the practice said: "Over these three days the practice will be able to provide a limited number of on-the-day appointments, which will be for urgent issues only.

"Our normal appointment service, including advance bookable appointments, will be available again from week beginning Monday, April 9.

"We are asking patients who have a non-urgent issue to contact us then instead of during the upgrade period.

"In addition, the practice will not be able to process orders for repeat prescriptions during the week of the upgrade.

"Patients who would normally have ordered their repeat prescriptions during the week beginning April 2 are asked to submit their orders by Wednesday, March 28, instead.

"The practice apologises to patients for any inconvenience this disruption to normal services causes."