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Terrible - 0 stars

Story from nhs.uk

"Terrible - 0 stars"

About: Littlewick Medical Centre

Littlewick put so many unnecessary barriers in place to making an appointment; firstly there is an automated phone message trying it's very best to get you to hang up, then if you do manage to get through to someone, all of the appointments are always gone and they tell you to try again the next day. I can only assume this is so they can fudge stats and say they're seeing X amount of people the same day.

Of course the receptionist needs to know all the details even though they already know there are no appointments left, it's so demeaning making patients jump through so many hoops just to try and get a bit of help.

They are constantly taking on new patients & covering other local surgeries, always raking in the contract income but never putting the patients first.

I've been registered here my whole life and can honestly say I've never had a positive experience, I dread phoning them. Would not recommend.

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Responses

Response from Littlewick Medical Centre nearly 2 years ago
Littlewick Medical Centre

Submitted on 05/06/2023 at 14:57
Published on nhs.uk on 07/06/2023 at 14:06

Dear patient,

Thank you for taking the time to write a review for the surgery. I am sorry to hear that you are finding it difficult to contact the surgery.

Having listened to patient feedback, we recently reduced the number of recorded messages on the phone lines so that our patients can get through to us more quickly. We also have live data monitoring to show us how long the call queue is so that we can adjust staffing levels to respond to incoming calls.

Your comment about fudging statistics is unfounded and unfair. All data regarding appointments offered by GP surgeries is available to NHS England who monitor this by extracting the data from our clinical system.

The receptionists ask for the nature of the medical problem when a patient contacts us so that they can signpost to appropriate services. This helps to ensure GP appointments are available for those patients who need to see a GP.

We merged with another local practice in April 2022 which may be what you have heard about our connections with other local practices.

We have an open practice list for new patients which is important as it allows local people to have a choice of GP surgery for example when they are new to the area. There are also patients who leave the surgery through moving out of the area.

If you would like me to investigate your concerns further, please send the details into the surgery by email for my attention to ddicb.littlewick.letters@nhs.net or you can phone the surgery on 0115 9325229.

Kind regards

Carly Widziernikow

Practice Manager

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