"Great Concerns about this Practice"

I have been registered with this surgery for over 15 years and use it only on limited occasions. Getting an appointment is almost impossible, you ring up in the morning at 8am, as instructed, and it can take up to 80 attempts to get through, by which time all appointments time have gone and the process has to be repeated the following day. Appointments for 2 weeks in future are released at fixed times and the same process is repeated. There is a walk in service on a Monday, when I attempted this a few weeks ago, I was 44 on the list and after 1.5 hours they had seen 13 people, I gave up as I estimated I would be there for over 6 hours waiting.

At the times when I have seen a doctor, my experiences, and those of my wife have not been good. I had what turned out to be a BCC on my face, when it was subsequently diagnosed privately, it was diagnosed for months by a doctor there as an ingrowing hair on my face. Even more worrying, a severe chest issue with my wife, was told by the doctor, without any serious investigation, that she most probably had lung cancer, this caused enormous distress for many weeks, after which we went privately and her condition was diagnosed as pneumonia and treated accordingly in a private clinic

Another minor complaint from myself for painful lump on the underside of my foot was diagnosed as rheumatism in my foot joint and there was nothing I could do about it. I subsequently went a foot specialist who diagnosed it tighten tendon on the top my foot, gave me an insole to put in my shoe and the problem went away in a few weeks.

The staff seem to have an attitude when you ask to for a private referral, The receptionists seem to operate triage system to prevent you making an appointment and have no qualification to make such assessments. I have even used private GPs when it is totally impossible to get an appointment. I am 67 and never been asked for any form of health check, which I now get privately and we are now looking for an alternative surgery in the area, I have absolutely no confidence in the practice and notice that their CCG assessment in all but one area is 'requires improvement' which in my view is an understatement. I write this review in the hope that the practice will take note and bring their surgery up to modern clinical and managerial standards.