"I think twice before booking an appointment"

If there is any doctors surgery that has made me think twice about booking an appointment it is this one. Usually I will look at any which way to solve my medical problems before subjecting myself to the disinterested and dismissive way the Saltdean Practice doctors deal with their patients.

I don't believe I have ever left an appointment thinking wow, these doctors really know their stuff. Last year I returned three times to my GP because he had successively prescribed HRT drugs that had been discontinued - demonstrating how uninformed and complacent he had become and wasting quite a lot of my time going backwards and forwards between surgery and chemist.

Just recently I have visited three different GPs in the practice and each one has left me feeling like my issue was a pain in the proverbial, that they were just going through the motions, that the treatment for my medical condition is is a series of data processes and tick boxes, that no matter how much pain or how incapacitated you might be it is your problem to deal with until they can refer you elsewhere. Basically they are like a sorting office.

Things that might make a difference to my perception of your practice::

1. Look like you care

2. Listen instead of assuming

3. Don't google your patients problem in front of them - it doesn't exactly fill them with confidence!

4. Ask the patient how much their ailment is impacting their day to day life and why. If that impact is extreme then think laterally to help them. Discuss ways to mitigate the impact.

5. When they leave ask if they are happy with the outcome of the appointment and if they are not find out why

5. Maintain your professional development throughout your career

6. Remember that everyone who comes through your door is human, has feelings, is feeling vulnerable and needs your considered help. They are not visiting to annoy you or because they have time on their hands that they fancied wasting in your surgery

7. If you know you cant solve the issue to your patients full satisfaction explain why you cant, why you have to take a particular route or action and offer some advice on what the patient can do to help themselves in the meantime.

It really doesn't take much to make a big difference to your patients attitude to their problems. Empowering them with information and knowledge and reassuring them that something will be done to help them can have very good results and may even reduce the number of times you see an unhappy patient over and over again. Sending them away no better off than when they came will result in reviews like this one.