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Really gone downhill

Story from nhs.uk

"Really gone downhill"

About: The Milton Surgery

It is now impossible to get an appointment to see a doctor on the day you ring up. This is since online booking has been implemented and afternoon appointments have been booked in the morning. The usual scenario is that you ring on the dot of 8am. It is permanently engaged for 30 minutes, by which time all the day's appointments have gone.

Two health care professionals told my husband he needed to be seen the same day for a problem with his eye. There were no appointments available and he was told to ring back the next day. The receptionist said he did not qualify for a telephone consultation. A complaint to the practice manager procured one of these and a GP rang. She declined to see him and said he should go to the Eye Hospital. He went there to be told it should have been dealt with by the GP.

My own 6-monthly blood tests are a year overdue. I simply cannot be bothered with all the hassle of making an appointment now and am actively seeking to change doctors. This surgery used to be superb. Now I fear for my family if ever they need to see someone urgently.

I strongly object to having to tell someone other than a doctor - i.e. an unqualified receptionist, what is wrong with me, and for them to decide if I am to be allowed an appointment. This is a disaster waiting to happen. The date below is not accurate, since a GP refused to see my husband. However, it is the month the incident took place.

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Responses

Response from The Milton Surgery 5 years ago
The Milton Surgery

Submitted on 06/09/2018 at 11:19
Published on nhs.uk at 13:06

Unfortunately we just don’t have enough appointments to match the levels of demand we are facing. We are in the same position as many other surgeries both locally and nationally. We are working hard to try provide more, we have recruited an additional doctor an advanced nurse practitioner and specialist paramedic, this has been a great success where there is an acute shortage of GP’s.

It is a struggle to get through to us we have limited resources to answer huge numbers of calls. We have recently improved our telephone system to try to move some of the call types away from the appointments line. Patients can now ring at any time for test results and for prescription enquires, these calls are not answered by our appointments team.

We have made some improvements to the booking system to help manage the demand. The previous system meant that patients would call at 8am and all the appointments would be quickly booked. A large number of patients would be asked to come to our sit and wait clinic many would wait several hours while our doctors would consult with a normal clinic and then squeeze in extra patients. They would then visit those patients that were housebound and return to the surgery to see more patients that were still waiting from the morning. This would then be followed by afternoon surgery. This was not sustainable, the doctors would often have no lunch and be at work well beyond the working time directive, completing paperwork and following up on phone calls.

If your call is urgent, you will be offered a call from our duty doctor and this is what happened when we did not have an appointment available for your husband. At no time did a receptionist tell you what was wrong with your husband. When the duty doctor called and discussed the symptoms they felt the best place to be would be the eye hospital where they have all the necessary equipment and experts in eye problems.

I am sorry to hear you haven’t booked your blood test we have no shortage of appointments for this.

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