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Appalling service

Story from nhs.uk

"Appalling service"

About: Black Country Family Practice

Two attempts to see GP first of all for flare up of eczema after 2 hours in a queue no appointments and staff refused to book an appointment in advance leaving me no choice but to go to urgent care at the hospital where I work it was busy and i hadn't wanted to go there because this was something my GP should be able to manage. In urgent care they booked me an appointment for the next day why could they but not my GP?

This week I asked for an appointment but after 4pm because I was at work had consultation for sensitive problem which took a lot of courage for me to discuss. Got told I needed to be seen face to face but when I phoned to chase appointment I got told I would have to go through the humiliation of repeating my phone consultation. Understandably I got upset and frustrated and I did swear. Not excusing that but you can't get anyone to answer the phone and you are not getting the service you should from the GP but staff have time to type letters telling you off for swearing? Unbelievable! it is about time GP practices actually went back to caring for their patients treating them with respect and dignity then I wouldn't get upset and swear in the first place

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Responses

Response from Black Country Family Practice 2 years ago
Black Country Family Practice

Submitted on 25/11/2021 at 14:53
Published on nhs.uk on 26/11/2021 at 11:06

We are sorry to hear about your experience.

Nationally there is a demand for GP Services which means our telephone lines are extremely busy. Between 11/10/2021 and 11/11/2021, we had 20,861 calls to the practice, 9078 calls were answered which means sadly 11783 were missed calls.

We understand that it is frustrating, the team are doing their best to answer the phones as quickly as possible, our team do care!

We are encouraging as many patients to use our e-consult service to help relieve the phone lines between 8am to 12pm.

Patients can telephone 111 for advice.

All patients can now order their repeat medication via NHS App. Hopefully, by using this service, it will also free up the phone lines. This service is a quick and efficient way of ordering repeat medication for everyone.

We do have a zero tolerance policy as staff have the right to come to work without being verbally abused.

I wish to offer my sincere apologies if you feel the care provided by the practice has not been to the standard you have come to expect.

Kind regards

Debra

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