"Does anybody actually work here?"

I am very sorry that you have had such difficulty in contacting the practice by telephone to book an appointment.

As part of the merger, a new telephone system was introduced and this works by sending all calls coming into each practice to a centralised queue. The calls can then be answered from any site, ensuring that the calls are answered in a fair and consistent manner. The call volume can be extremely high due to the patient demand in a practice size of around 34,000 patients and we do our very best to answer all calls. We review this system regularly throughout the day as this allow us to best focus our call handling resources at the busiest times of the day. We do have GP’s in the surgery every day, the practice could not operate without them. I think we can all agree that the national shortage of GP’s is having an effect on the day to day running of practices and this is causing disappointment and frustration to our patients. We are continuing to provide face to face, telephone, home visits and urgent on-call appointments with the staff we have available each day and we continually assess our appointment system so that we provide the best care possible whilst ensuring the safety of patients (and staff). We have also implemented the use of Online Consult for non-urgent issues. Further information about this can be found on the practice website https://www.jamesstreet-workington.nhs.uk/

Whilst your review remains anonymous I am unable to look further into your concerns. If you would like to speak with a member of the team about this you can contact the Service Delivery Lead at your practice or email the practice on cuccg.workingtongpcomplaints@nhs.uk.

With our best regards,

Alison S-D

NCPC Patient Experience