"Receptionists are a disgrace"

Called 8.45am on Friday 5/6/21 to request a call from a GP, was advised the earliest I could pre-book would be 14/6/21. I asked if a request could be given to the doctor to request medication for vertigo, explained this was urgent to stop the nausea/sickness as the doctor advised last time I had the condition it was best to start the tablets immediately so there was less risk to complications with my Addison’s disease. Called at 4pm to ensure the request had gone through and was told it was waiting for a prescription sign off, asked if this would be done urgently today and was told “probably Monday” and “it will probably be sent to the pharmacy” and I would receive a call if there was an issue. I explained again why this was urgent and they said I could chase it with the hub on Saturday. Called the hub on Saturday, no answer just a recorded message. Monday came and went with no prescription, Tuesday no prescription, my husband called to the surgery Wednesday to be told there wasn’t even an outstanding request.

I called the surgery, gave the names of the people I’d spoken too and the times I called, no trace of any request. Receptionist hung up on me when I became irate and asked to speak to the manager. I went into the actual surgery to be told there was a problem with prescription requests and the receptionist had to request them a number of times as the med-tech team were ignoring them. Said she would send another request until I said this was unacceptable and would be complaining and then she advised she would request it urgently from the on-call doctor and it would be available to collect at 4pm. 6 days I have now waited for an emergency prescription. When asked why the three people me and my husband had spoken to earlier told me there we no outstanding requests I was advised it was different access. Seems strange to me that the system used to order prescriptions does not provide any information as to where the request is? Almost like they were making it up…

When I called on Friday 5/6/21 I said I was willing to go to a walk in centre to see a GP (not A&E, an actual walk in practice) I was told not to do so as this was for emergencies only. 6 days later I’m waiting with bated breath to see if this will actually be ready at 4pm as promised. This is the third time I’ve had prescription issues, twice they’ve actually forgotten to send my insulin prescription to the pharmacy for collection and found them in a drawer at the reception desk