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Appalling service.

Story from nhs.uk

"Appalling service. "

About: Inspire Health

I called this morning to try and get an appointment with a GP and was told to call again this afternoon. On the phone from 17.15 having tried earlier and got the we are really busy spiel. It took until 18.10 for my call to be answered, to be told that appointments had been fully booked since 17.30. Given that this is an appointments line and that they knew that they were full for 45 minutes before they answered my call, why waste my time. Do they make money from keeping patients on hold?

If you can't book an appointment on line then you get 2nd class treatment by the practice in relation to getting an appointment. They will only take bookings each day in the appointed hours and you can't book even a routine appointment in advance.

I have been at the surgery since being a child, but it has really gone downhill since Inspire Health took over. It's like a bad joke, say Carry On again Doctor, but not as funny.

I'm left with no help, and facing the phone call lottery again tomorrow if I can stand the stress and feeling that they don't really care one way or the other.

Appalling customer service.

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Responses

Response from Inspire Health 12 months ago
Inspire Health

Submitted on 02/05/2024 at 11:28
Published on nhs.uk at 11:28

Dear Patient,

Thank you for taking the time to leave your review and comments. We are saddened and sorry to hear of your frustrations and experience.

Unfortunately, the pressures on the NHS mean that obtaining an appointment is not as straight forwards as it once was 20 years ago for example.

We would like to assure you that GP practices are not paid money to simply keep a patient on hold on the phone. Our administration team work very hard working through these calls on a daily basis however the demand often outweighs the resources available.

A patient is welcome to request an appointment by either calling the practice and having an administrator submit the medical request on your behalf, or a patient is welcome to submit this request online themselves by going to the Inspire Health webpage. Urgent Appointment requests opens at 08:00am and for routine requests, it's open at 5pm. These services close at 10am and 6pm or unless capacity has been reached beforehand. Sadly, 99% of the time, capacity is reached quickly and this is the same for all practices nationally given the demand and capacity.

We are not sure on your specific circumstances as to whether you can complete the online form yourself(although the assumption is this would be possible given you were able to access the internet to leave this review), but if you are able, this may be the easier option rather than calling the practice and being on hold.

If you would like the practice to investigate this matter more specifically, please contact the practice.

Warm regards,

Inspire Health Management Team

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