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Dismissive communication

Posted By aquariusqh96

"Dismissive communication"

About: Knoll Medical Practice

(as the patient),

I am writing to provide feedback on a recent experience requiring me to collect a pre-arranged medical letter, which ultimately involved a failure of service and a highly problematic complaint resolution process.

I was informed my letter was ready for collection (at my own cost) and checked the practice's published online hours, which showed the surgery as open between 8:00 am and 11:00 am on the Saturday. As I work full-time during the week, I specifically made the trip during this time slot.

Upon arrival, I was informed by a staff member that they were only open for flu jabs and they would not assist with any other patient queries. My request was not for a complex new service; I was asking to pay for a pre-printed letter. This was a task that would have taken a matter of seconds.

The staff member's refusal—and the time spent arguing why they could not help—was unjustifiable. The defence of strictly following policy failed to acknowledge the simple professional discretion required to complete a ready, seconds-long task for a patient who had travelled to the surgery based on its advertised operating hours.

I raised it with the practice, expecting an apology and a simple accommodation (such as posting the letter or arranging a specific collection time).

The practice responded defensively and were highly dismissive. Instead of offering an amicable solution, they failed to acknowledge the simplicity of my request or the wasted trip caused by the practice's misleading online hours. The inconvenience was trivialised, comparing the surgery to a mechanic or a bank, which only served to rile me further and demonstrate a complete lack of empathy for patients.

It is only fair to state that the practice finally corrected the situation after persistent effort and escalation on my part.  The fee was ultimately waived for the letter and they sent the document to me electronically.

While the final outcome (receiving the letter for free) was the correct conclusion, the quality of service and complaint handling was extremely poor. The dismissive, argumentative tone of correspondence was unacceptable and unnecessarily prolonged the issue. It required unreasonable patient effort to resolve a simple administrative matter.

I hope the practice uses this feedback to review staff discretion regarding  "clinic only" hours and there is some training on handling complaints with empathy and proportionality.

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Responses

Response from Callum McQue, Practice Manager, Knoll Medical Practice 6 days ago
Callum McQue
Practice Manager,
Knoll Medical Practice

The Practice Manager in a GP practice is the senior business leader responsible for the overall operations, strategy, and management of the surgery. This role includes: Business and Finance: Managing budgets, payroll, contracts, and business planning. Human Resources: Overseeing all staff, including recruitment, training, and performance. Operations: Ensuring the smooth, day-to-day running of the practice, from patient services to IT and premises maintenance.

Submitted on 17/11/2025 at 11:01
Published on Care Opinion at 11:13

Dear Patient,

Thank you for taking the time to provide a detailed review of your experiences with Knoll Medical Practice. I sincerely apologise for the frustration and disappointment you encountered, particularly regarding the letter collection process and the subsequent handling of your complaint.

Please accept my sincere apologies if you were left feeling upset or dismissed by any action or communication from our team. That was certainly not the intention of anyone at the Practice. I am also disappointed to learn that you found the subsequent complaint resolution process problematic, as we strive to handle all feedback with professionalism and fairness.

To explain the situation on the day you attended, as per the response to your initial complaint, we were in the middle of a seasonal Covid and Flu vaccination clinic. This was an exceptional operational day during which we were vaccinating many hundreds of vulnerable patients in a highly structured, streamlined process.

Every effort was being made to adhere strictly to the schedule to ensure the smooth vaccination flow. This included a policy of not dealing with any non-seasonal Covid or seasonal influenza vaccination enquiries, as multiple small requests, even tasks that take a matter of seconds, can quickly accumulate and cause a significant delay to services, ultimately disrupting the care provided to the hundreds of patients waiting.

While your request was simple, accommodating it would have compromised the integrity of the planned clinic flow, and we had to prioritise the large-scale public health service delivery on that day.

I can confirm that your initial complaint received a response the same day it was received, and a final resolution was achieved on the following Monday (the next working day). Thank you for confirming that the outcome, which included waiving the letter fee and sending the document digitally, was a satisfactory conclusion that negated the need for you to attend the surgery for collection.

I understand you were seeking an amicable solution, and regret that our response, particularly the use of the alternative business analogy, further aggravated you and felt lacking in empathy. This was certainly not the intention. The analogy was used to explain a key constraint: that you had requested that we open either earlier or later than our established core working hours solely for the collection of the letter. While the letter collection itself is simple, the underlying request to adjust our operational hours for individual convenience is not a reasonable expectation of any business operating with set times.

All our staff do their utmost to treat patients with dignity and respect. However, this dedication does not mean we can always accommodate every specific request, particularly when it conflicts with major planned health initiatives. Our staff were here working in excess of their usual hours to ensure we could vaccinate as many of our vulnerable patients as early in the winter season as possible. The feedback from those clinics was exceptionally positive, largely due to the good planning that was strictly adhered to, which included not dealing with non-clinic enquiries.

Our inability to assist you on that specific day whilst managing the vaccination of many hundreds of patients does not reflect a lack of empathy or care for you as a patient, but rather a necessary adherence to a plan designed to serve the greatest number of people efficiently.

Finally, I apologise again if our same-day practice response felt dismissive or lacking empathy as that was not our intention. We value your feedback on the tone of our correspondence and will use it to review our internal communication style.

Yours Sincerely,

Callum McQue

Practice Manager

On Behalf of GP Partners

  • {{helpful}} {{helpful == 1 ? "person thinks" : "people think"}} this response is helpful

Update posted by aquariusqh96 (the patient)

I am incredibly disappointed with the response to this, again I find it to be defensive and dismissive, with an apology for the frustration and disappointment I encountered, rather than apologising for them refusing to simply hand me a letter. I’m blamed for supposedly asking them to adjust their operating hours for individual convenience, rather than addressing failure to correctly advertise their limited hours.

The apparent success of the vaccination day does not excuse the failure of basic administration or the unnecessary dismissive tone of the subsequent complaint handling.

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