"Many bad experiences"

My partner and I have been patients of our local practice for under a year, and yet in this time we have experienced consistent and repeated incompetence and rudeness from the receptionists at almost every visit. I have found it very difficult to make appointments, with the receptionists treating every phone call with suspicion and contempt.

Here is an example, just one of many. I was given the wrong dose of medication from the doctor (an understandable mistake) but when phoning to ask for clarification was told by the receptionist that the doctor doesn't make mistakes, and when I pressed them to ask the doctor I was told that they might ask the doctor, and was very clearly being given the brush off. It took repeated phone calls to get them to check with the doctor, who then called and told me that I was right, the dose was wrong.

My partner has also had bad experiences, the most recent of which was when she recently found on returning from holiday that her repeat prescription had not been processed properly by the practice, and despite the fact that she was running extremely low on essential medication (with only 48 hours worth of medication left) was unable to get the practice to remedy the mistake in a timely manner, and once again was met with stonewalling, rudeness, and complete inaction by the reception staff. It took 2 days of repeated phone calls for any action to be taken, despite the urgency of the problem. When the problem was finally sorted out, (by the pharmacist, not the practice! ) she called the practice to inform them that the problem was solved, and was met with startling rudeness from the receptionist.

Frankly, I am astonished that in the short time we have been with the practice we have had so many bad experiences. I would strongly recommend that the practice look at their procedures, training and culture, as this is utterly unacceptable. All of the problems we have had have been at times of genuine medical need and rather than assisting us they have caused nothing but added stress and utterly failed to perform their most primary functions.