"Degraded service"

Hi,

In the last year, we had to book a few visits to this surgery for various problems.

1. Ear infections for myself and little one... badly misdiagnosed. We have been advised that the little one can fly just to find out that on landing at the destination our little one lost his hearing... Proper antibiotics prescribed from abroad sorted the problem in 2 days. And I had to go through two courses of antibiotics because the first one was the milder and cheaper one.

2. Our little one has been prescribed, cheap or mild antibiotics over winter for a lung infection... surprise ... after 2 weeks we had to go back to the GP and complain the wet cough had not got away but got worse and they prescribed a mild dose of antibiotics and offered another course of antibiotics stronger than brought the little one on track. The funny thing was that only on the second visit with the same issue they did decide to do a cough swab.

3. My Wife had a throat infection and we went through the same shambles with 2 courses of antibiotics.... even though we did ask for a cough swab they only decided to do it on the second visit after they offered a stronger antibiotic medicine.

4. Another visit with the little one ... prescribed some cream for a skin rash ... we did complain this issue had been triggered for years by an allergen.. we had been laughed in the face and told that NHS has no money for allergen testing and we should go private if we are not happy with their treatment!!! After going back and forth about the problem they told us they could refer us for testing but the waiting list is 2 years?! 2 minutes later a proper GP got into the cabinet to tell us they could refer us to a dermatologist.... still waiting for that referral in the mailbox.

Getting through to someone on the phone is close to impossible most of the time. So we have to jump in the car to make appointments at the reception.

In the last few months, we have noticed the surgery started to bring in GP associates ... which probably translates into students or apprentices :) we had a few visits with two of them and they look worryingly with little experience in practicing general medicine. Yet again they are strongly advised to make sure they let you know that NHS has no money for any kind of testing if you ask them to prove that the antibiotics they prescribe do kill the bacteria.

My personal opinion is that at this surgery most of the practitioners they do practice a Trial-and-error approach to the medicine... which is worrying. I think next time when this surgery GPs will prescribe any antibiotics that were not tested beforehand to see if it does cover that bacterial infection I should give them the invoice for the prescription charge on the first course of antibiotics. It should be fair.

Well, who am I to complain... just an NI taxpayer who is always taxed... month by month.