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Awful reception call pick up times

Story from nhs.uk

"Awful reception call pick up times"

About: The Leckhampton Surgery

The attitude of reception has changed completely in the last few years. Every time I phone it's been up to 40 minutes in the queue, on average, even at off peak times. Sometimes I get to position 1 for it to ring out. I start again, and it's another half hour. The best time I've made it to a pick up is 20 minutes. This is rare. The worst time was 53 minutes. If this is going to be the standard wait time, please provide a free phone number at least. The reception staff have become less friendly, often saying "just get online". Reception is the gateway to the surgery; the doctors and nurses are fine, but the attitude at the front desk has changed radically. It may be that there is increased demand and more aggressive callers, but hanging on the phone for so long to be met with an off attitude makes me mark the surgery down to a one star. It's such a shame. It used to be a really welcoming reception and a quicker response.

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Responses

Response from The Leckhampton Surgery 10 months ago
The Leckhampton Surgery

Submitted on 24/06/2024 at 09:01
Published on nhs.uk at 09:01

Dear patient

We are so sorry that you are having to wait on the phone for so long. As you mention we are extremely busy in Primary care at this time and Leckhampton is no exception. The strikes in secondary care are not helping. Patients on the long waiting lists are often trying to contact us to find out what is going on and where on the waiting list they are, we cannot help them with this once they have been referred and this causes much frustration. They are also coming back to us for pain management etc. This does not help with the ordinary patients that want to contact us about Primary care problems and and their ongoing long term conditions.

We now place all pre-bookable GP appointments online as well as have them available on the telephone and in person. They are all released now at 10am and unfortunately this does mean that often the online ones are snapped up before the phone lines are able to be answered.

Our reception staff do try to keep each call as short as possible and we apologise if this does come over as rude at times.

If everyone who can book appointments online are able to do this we would not have the long queues for our telephone line.

We apologise that there is no quick fix for this and ask all patients to bear with us. Please also try to utilise the other services available such as local pharmacies who are now contracted to deal with minor illnesses and minor injuries.

Thank you for your understanding

Kind Regards

Leckhampton Surgery

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