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About: Kingsbury Health and Wellbeing

I have been registered with this practice for 9 years now. In recent years it changed to the worst. In fact it is horrendous that practice like this exist. It feels like they try very hard for you not to come. The not so new system of getting an appointment is absolutely ridiculous. Patients at the practice are not able to book an appointment directly without having a telephone consultation first. I find discussing my health issue on the phone very uncomfortable as you can get the callback in the middle of your possibly busy day. There are situations when you simply don’t have the comfort to find a quite place to speak on the phone about your intimate problems. Unfortunately sometimes even your home might not be this place. So the idea of making appointment only by the “call and callback” it is just wrong! And will make people with possibly serious health problems to give up on seeing specialist. What a disgrace for NHS.

Additional to that I would like to mention that staff are rude, incompetent and not carrying. I understand that there is tremendous pressure on

NHS but this... this is just a bad practice.

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Responses

Response from Kingsbury Health and Wellbeing 7 years ago
Kingsbury Health and Wellbeing
Submitted on 24/02/2018 at 11:09
Published on nhs.uk on 20/03/2018 at 19:37


Thank you for your feedback.

The current appointment system was introduced in 2015 following extensive research into having a system to improve access.

This involved having our demand for appointments and the type of appointments analysed.

After careful consideration it was decided that a telephone triage system also called GP first would best meet the demand we have for appointments for the majority of our patients.

The system is not designed to make it difficult for patients to contact a GP.

Quite the opposite. When a patient rings the practice they are told that a GP will call them back usually within two hours.

At times of high demand the call back period may be extended and we let patients know when this is the case. This means that patients can speak with a GP on the day, if needed you will be offered a face to face appointment on the same day or at another time to ensure that your healthcare needs are met, including referrals onto further care when needed.

The system also enables us to help prevent patients making unnecessary trips to the surgery when they do not need to be seen.

We always ask patients to make sure that the telephone number they have requested a call back on remains free so that the doctor can get through. We feel we give enough information to patients for them to ensure that they are able to receive the call from the GP in a setting where they will be able to have the conversation. The GPs who take the calls wait whilst the patient moves to a quieter place in the office. Most employers are very supportive of the system which allows their employees to access care without leaving the workplace or to leave at a time which is planned.

We are sorry that you have found our staff to be rude and we are always reviewing and providing training so that they can deliver the best service possible.

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