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Horrendous booking and phone system

Story from nhs.uk

"Horrendous booking and phone system "

About: Winterton Medical Practice

It is such a shame that Winterton Medical Practice use such an old fashioned booking system as all of the staff I have seen at the practice are lovely and helpful. If you manage to get through on the phone, after trying to use an automated booking system that doesn’t work, you’ll be lucky! It seems like such a simple fix to upgrade the phones and booking system and would make such a big difference to patients, and probably the reception staff too, if only they’d do it. I wouldn’t recommend the practice and would register elsewhere if there was somewhere else in the village to go!

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Responses

Response from Winterton Medical Practice 3 years ago
Winterton Medical Practice

Submitted on 19/11/2020 at 10:50
Published on nhs.uk at 11:57

I am sorry about the difficulties you have had in getting through to the practice. Due to the current situation with the Covid19 pandemic most of the appointments are now telephone or video consultations which is causing the telephone lines to become a lot busier than usual. We have also needed to disable our remote appointment booking systems which means that these patients who would normally organise their appointments remotely are having to contact the practice by telephone as well. We understand the impact this has had on both patients and staff and we are currently looking into updating our telephone system to enable accessing the practice by telephone easier with the additional benefit of keeping the patient informed of their position in the queue. The new telephone system we are reviewing offers access to additional lines to increase the ability for patients to get through to the practice. We are working through some installation queries in relation to this but hope to be able to move forward with this upgrade shortly.

We have sent our apologies to patients as we fully understand the frustration this has caused and I assure you that we are here to answer your calls and ask that if you are held in a queue that you bear with us and your call will be answered as soon as possible.

Although the telephone and online booking system are turned off presently we do also offer an online consultation service and try to promote this service as much as possible in order to reduce the amount of calls to the practice. This service is available to all patients who have access to a smartphone/ tablet or computer. Online consultations allow patients to submit clinical and administrative queries to the practice which are dealt with by the most appropriate member of the practice team and this reduces the impact on the phone lines. Using the online consultations service makes it easier for us to quickly decide how we can best help patients with the least amount of disruption. The service is free and confidential and medical consultations are always reviewed by a GP or Nurse Practitioner.

If you think this would be beneficial to you then please visit our website to gain access to the online consultations service: https://www.wintertonmedicalpractice.nhs.uk/wmponlineservices.html

Thank you for bringing these concerns to our attention, we value the comments that patients provide us as it allows us to improve the services we offer to patients. If you would like further details on the online consultation service or anything else then please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Gail Holland

Practice Manager

Winterton Medical Practice

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