"Poor health care provision locally"

I am extremely concerned about the poor quality of service provided by our local GP Surgery. This is not a reflection on the Doctors themselves and it is regrettable that they are at the brunt of criticism and it seems this is happening generally across the country. There appears to be a deficit of Doctors so either not enough are being trained; or they are leaving the profession; or the conditions of work are very unattractive; or they can make as much money as locums without the responsibilities etc etc. Whatever the reasons the system seems to be at rock bottom.

It has been nigh on impossible for me to speak to a Doctor and impossible to see one. There is such a turn over that no one knows my history which is bad enough if you are physically ill but pretty tragic if there are mental health issues. It does not appear that reference is made to conflicting medication which may be exacerbating the medical problem and this could be caused by self medicating too – no discussion or sharing is possible.

Alongside this online access is confusing and ineffective. The last time I tried to connect I was thrown into a patient registration which then wouldn’t work until I had a letter from the surgery, which some 3-4 weeks later still has not arrived.

Orders for prescriptions often go wrong and the last time I waited for a Doctor to call for nine and a half hours and nobody ever did. Something is seriously wrong.

Love the Prescribing Pharmacists and the Nurse Practitioners. But we do need Doctors too and they are currently absent from our local health care.