"Very poor booking system for appointments"

Thank you for your feedback. We are sorry to hear of your experience when accessing our services. We understand that there are often long waiting times on the telephones to make an appointment. This is due to the high call volume which we are trying our best to get through as quickly as possible. Our receptionists answering the telephones are constantly seeing over 35 patients in the queue. We were used to seeing numbers like this at 8.00am in the morning but we are now seeing numbers like this all day, every day. Please be assured that we are trying our best to get through the calls as quickly as possible.

We operate a clinical triage system. This means that all requests for consultation will be screened by a GP and appointments will be offered based on clinical urgency. Ultimately this should provide improved accessibility for patients as, once you have made a request for a consultation, your request will be clinically triaged and you will be contacted by our team to organise an appointment with the appropriate healthcare professional within our team. The easiest way to request a consultation is online and this will avoid long waits on the telephone. However, if you do not have access to the internet you can contact our reception team on 01803 553558 and they will submit the request on your behalf by gathering the appropriate information from you.

Unfortunately, once our appointments are fully booked, we are not able to create more. We have a multi disciplinary clinical team and we are offering as many appointments as we are physically able to whilst remaining safe. If we cannot offer an appointment at a time you want, we will try to provide an alternative where possible or signpost you to other services who can help.