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Today we reached rock bottom

Story from nhs.uk

"Today we reached rock bottom"

About: Oak Hall

This practice has been going downhill for a number of years now, but today we reached rock bottom.

They only offer appointments on the day, their phone line is always engaged, and if you don't get through until after 8.30am then all the appointments have gone.

Last week my daughter went in to book some inoculations, and was told she needed to complete a holiday form. I dropped it in this afternoon, only to be told "we've stopped taking holiday forms now. You need to use a private company. Here are their details." When I said that we'd only been given the form a few days ago, she checked with a colleague and then repeated that "we don't take these forms any more". She didn't care. She made no apology. She seemed entirely disinterested. She seemed surprised that I was irritated.

The saving feature of this practice, even in recent months, has been the charm and politeness of the reception staff. But without that, this practice really is a disaster. I am quite sure they only offer appointments on the day so that they complete some quota or other that feeds their coffers. It's an appalling practice.

For a while I lived just close enough to Hamstreet to be able to register at their surgery. The Hamstreet surgery is - quite simply - wonderful. If by any chance you are in their catchment area, and are unfortunate enough to be registered with Oak Hall, then I would strongly recommend moving.

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Responses

Response from Oak Hall 4 years ago
Oak Hall

Submitted on 22/11/2019 at 16:05
Published on nhs.uk at 16:29

I am so sorry you had this experience.

We are honouring travel forms that were given out before 18th Nov 2019 but all travel vaccine forms require 6 working weeks in advance of travel. I do recall this particular request as having a travel date of 6th January and would therefore not be enough time for us to process. This is the reason the travel clinic was suggested.

We try to prioritise the clinical needs of our patients and travel vaccines take a considerable amount of Nursing time which our PPG felt would be best used on the clinical need of our patients, this will give more appointments for sick patients. Our decision to change a service is based on the needs of our patients and not our finances.

There are many ways to get an appointment, You can book up to 10 weeks in advance for Nurses and up to 4 weeks for Nurse Practitioners and GP's, via the phone or the web. I agree the phone lines are busy in the early morning, we are restricted by the space available in the building and the increase in demand by the number of patients in the area wanting to register at Oak Hall. There are two receptionists answering 2 phones and we have 4 incoming lines. The reception team are trained to signpost to the most appropriate clinician which involves asking patients searching questions, this does take time.

We do offer many on the day appointments with both GP's and Nurse Practitioners, this helps manage the high number of DNA's as patients are more likely to attend for appointments they booked the same day.

I agree Hamstreet have a very good service, they have been fortunate to have several GP's, it is very difficult to recruit GP's in general but to the Marsh in particular.

Please do contact me directly if you wish to discuss this further.

If you feel the relationship with Oak Hall has broken down, there are alternative surgeries in the area that I am happy to discuss with you.

We are always open to suggestions that will help us improve our service wherever possible.

Once again I do apologise for the experience you have had.

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