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Appointment system disgraceful

Story from nhs.uk

"Appointment system disgraceful "

About: Audley Mills Surgery

Abnormal blood test result communicate with patient it said .......that was July. It’s now August.

All I’ve received is text messages asking me to call the surgery. What do they think I’ve been doing since July ? The straw that broke the camels back came yesterday when I received a phone call from them saying I need to call them!

I am perplexed as to why a doctor is not contacting patients with abnormal results and discussing them? Surely if the docs have called me they can make me an appointment to speak with someone. They’ve removed the on line booking system, you can’t just queue up anymore they say you have to call. Phone lines were opening from 7am it now 8am, but whatever time I try and call I’m constantly met with the same message...your call cannot be answered due to the high level of calls.....dead tone !!! The lady asked me yesterday am I having symptoms ? What do you mean by that ? Of course I have symptoms constantly ! The conversation did not go well because I’m tired of explaining why I haven’t spoken to a doctor yet. It’s disgraceful. I’d hate to be an elderly patient under their care I really would it’s scary. I’m not supposed to have any stress due to my medical condition but this surgery makes me worse by the ridiculous booking system.

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Responses

Response from Audley Mills Surgery 3 years ago
Audley Mills Surgery

Submitted on 17/08/2020 at 12:51
Published on nhs.uk at 13:12

Thank you for our feedback regarding our appointment system which I will try and explain.

Firstly, I would like to explain that every patient is responsible for their own health and therefore we ask patients to contact us to obtain their results of their tests as with over 22,000 patients, it is an impossible task to contact each and every patient on a daily basis.

If a patient has not made any contact with us at the end of a month, the surgery will then contact the patient and advise the necessary action. Occasionally there are cases where the GP feels the patient needs to be contacted urgently and in these cases the receptionist will always contact the patient – all others are left for the patient to contact the surgery.

As you are aware we are currently going through a pandemic and therefore measures have been put in place to protect the staff and patients. The pandemic has meant removing the facility to book appointments online as these patients cannot be triaged appropriately before entering the surgery. The phone lines were initially opened at 7.00am to allow for the extremely busy period when the pandemic really took hold but now have been adjusted back to 8.00am as this is when the phone lines were originally opened pre-Covid. We also cannot allow patients to queue up outside the surgery as the reception is not fully open which again is to protect patients and staff alike as we enter this second wave of the pandemic.

For your information, the phone lines only allow 20 callers to ‘hold’ which is why you received the message saying ‘Your call cannot be answered due to the high level of calls’ as any callers beyond 20 are cut off. Obviously the phone system is extremely busy but, we do have more staff answering the phones so it is just a matter of continuing to phone and hold in the queue once it is reached.

I am sorry that you have found the appointment system difficult but during this pandemic but we have had to put measures in place to protect everyone. Unfortunately, you have signed your message anonymous so I cannot contact you directly regarding this. If you wish to discuss this matter directly, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Practice Manager

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