"unfriendly and unhelpful telephone reception staff"

I was asked by text to phone updating the practice regarding whether I smoke or not, (I don't). Don't know why they suddenly require this information after so many years. I phoned and had to wait over an hour for a reply. Having imparted the info. I asked very politly why it had taken an hour to get through and whether I should have phoned at an alternative time and was told she had no idea and goodbye. Please can your receptionist phone St James where they are always polite and helpful, if fact if they could be trained there it would really be helpful for all concerned. I just hope they experience a similar attitude when they have been asked to complete a task, it takes so long for them to get through and they then meet someone as curt and offhand as themselves. It costs nothing to be polite, it costs nothing to say 'I am sorry for your experience today and thank you for letting us know. I will pass on your concerns to our general manager and this will help us to improve our service in the future'. I do not know one person who is happy with this practice. Your patients and human beings who do not expect the earth from the NHS we all know how hard it is to deliver the service but that is no excuse for bad manners and bad behaviour. Everybody is stressed these days but we all need to be curteous for the sake of each other and for greater social cohesion.

Please do not brush this aside as something made out of nothing. If you can manage to get this right you will honestly start to notice a big difference.

As the new boss of the NHS said recently, "Patients are an “inconvenience” to the NHS, which has “built mechanisms to keep them away”, said the new boss of the health service.".

If you do not listen to me, please do listen to him.