"Gone downhill"

I've been at this surgery my whole life so looking for a new doctors is quite sad really. Over the years this practice has gone downhill, as have the staff. On numerous occasions I have complained due to the poor level of service but this time I have now lost all faith.

I put in a request for a repeat prescription last week and then had someone collect and pay for it from the pharmacy for me as I was stuck at work. Having got home to check it I realised it was the wrong item. I phoned the pharmacy and they assured me that they had put up what was on the prescription, so I then proceeded to phone the surgery.

After speaking to the receptionist it became clear that the it was the surgery that had got my prescription wrong. I then spoke to the manager and was told that we are responsible for checking medications before we leave the pharmacy, in this situation I did not as someone else collected for me. The manager then said she would get the doctor to ring me and see if he could answer as to why I had been given the wrong medication.

I spoke with the doctor, who then informed me that it was an error on behalf of the reception staff requesting the wrong thing.

So now I have to pay again to get the right medication, when none of this was my fault. More than 1 person at the surgery have told me that there is nothing they can do with regards to payment and can only assure me that this won't happen again.

This is simply not good enough and I think it's absolutely disgusting that I now have to pay twice the amount for someone else's mistake.

I don't feel some of the reception staff have had the appropriate training for this job, whilst I was awaiting test results a few years ago one of them told me the wrong results. There are a couple of long standing receptionists here that do a good job, however the same can not be said for the recent ones. And there is no patient/doctor continuity anymore.

As I say, I have had so many problems with this surgery over recent years and this has just about topped it off. I will look into taking this further!