"Mixed experiences"

1.Phone consultations are not organised by time slot but simply allocated a day. These are erroneously entitled “appointments”. It is an inconvenient system to use, but calling these events appointments makes the arrangements more irritating to handle and difficult to reconcile with employers’ expectations.

2. On two separate occasions when my attendance was required at surgery I received a text message telling me that my appointment was by telephone. The first time this happened I called to make sure that there had not been a problem with the scheduled blood test, which would have delayed follow up consultation, and was told that a lot of people had the same issue, and just to arrive, not to worry. The second time I was surprised that it was still happening given that reception staff are clearly aware that it is a problem. This glaring inefficiency has the potential to affect quality of experienced care for anyone who has a literal mind whether cognitively affected by autism or by another condition.

3. The actual care I receive at the hands of nursing practitioners is very high standard.

4. It was inordinately time consuming and incomprehensibly difficult for me to arrange for a pharmacy to be allowed to dispense my prescribed medication: I had been told by my doctor during the prior consultation that the existing prescription was already a repeat one and I only needed to give my details at the counter to be served. This turned out to not be the case and it took about six visits to the pharmacy, four phone calls and a separate unannounced visit to the surgery’s reception desk to get it organised. I still don’t understand how the doctor can have misinformed me in the first place. It does not make sense either that the practice told me, upon being asked in person, that they had authorised the change to a repeat prescription several days before, while the pharmacy told me on the same day that this had not yet been actioned. This was over a week after my first enquiry. It didn't help that every time the pharmacy assured me that the matter would be completed by the same afternoon/ the next day, and never once phoned to say that this had been delayed, occasioning several fruitless trips to their shop and several frustrating days spent awaiting the promised confirmation from them regarding any progress. The pharmacy’s inadequacies are not the practice’s fault but added to my frustration over the inadequate nature of communication between the practice and the pharmacy. Had my medication been for a psychotic condition I could have been in serious trouble missing it for nine days.

5. Asked to arrive no earlier than five minutes ahead of a scheduled appointment, having to wait more than 20 minutes in an almost deserted waiting room is exceedingly annoying. This has happened to me twice in two months.

6. This text box allows more characters than the review maximum, something only discovered when attempting to send it.