"Poorly managed practice"

Sadly the experience I just had at Orchard Surgery confirmed my suspicion that this is a failing practice. The appointment system does not work. Virtually everyone is asked to phone at 08.30, which means the lines are overloaded and extremely long waits are standard. I have never managed to get an appointment this way, by the time I speak to a receptionist no appointments are left. This time I had more success calling in the afternoon. Although the standard answer was spouted first of all "sorry, no appointments, call in the morning" I asked if I could have an evening or weekend appointment. The answer surprised me "thank you for reminding me we had weekend appointments"! How odd. Anyway, it did manage to release an elusive time slot. But why does it have to be this way? Why do patients have to fight for an appointment? I also think it is inappropriate for the receptionist to insist on knowing why you want to see the doctor. She is not clinically trained, she does not subscribe to the same level of ethics as a clinician, sitting in the waiting room it is not unusual to hear them gossiping in the back office, my medical condition is none of their business. I resorted to just saying I had a sore elbow (or some such vague condition) which seemed to satisfy her. In my experience, the GPs and nurses are friendly and professional, as they were on this occasion. The surgery is let down by its systems and processes. I feel for the receptionists, they are mostly short-tempered and unhelpful but I'm sure this is because they are as frustrated at the system as the patients are. Unfortunately, I fear that the consequence of this poorly run practice is that people won't bother getting symptoms checked out when they ought to as it really does require nerves of steel to navigate the system.