"conflicting information and poor standards in…"

my recent attempt to access care through witton street surgery was nothing short of infuriating. i tried to fill out a dfd form, but was repeatedly met with an error 404 – page not found. this wasn’t a fault with my internet connection, it was a server-side error – your end, not mine.

when i called reception, the person on the other end blatantly lied, claiming that staff were instructed not to fill in forms for patients. hang on – your own pre-recorded message clearly states that if you are digitally enabled but struggling, you should call and a team member will assist in completing the form for you. well, due to the surgery’s broken system, i was not digitally capable – and your staff were not willing to help.

after insisting she couldn’t help, she finally sent another link – which, unsurprisingly, gave me the exact same error. so the issue clearly wasn’t me. to make matters worse, the online system showed no appointments available – yet when i called back and spoke to someone else, suddenly there were appointments. how does one system say nothing is available, while another tells me otherwise? it's contradictory and chaotic.

after wasting over half an hour trying to deal with this, i had to call again, only to be offered an appointment at a time that no longer worked for me – all because of delays caused by your broken process. not only is this frustrating, it’s downright obstructive.

before, you could call later in the day – after 4:30 or 5:00 – and get an appointment. many of us work during the day and rely on those later slots. now, with your new system, that flexibility is gone. it seems the new setup is designed for the convenience of the gp surgery – not the patients.

witton street surgery is making it harder, not easier, for patients to get care. and that is completely unacceptable.