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Good practice overall - some issues regarding...

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"Good practice overall - some issues regarding..."

About: Upperthorpe Medical Centre

Our family have used this surgery for a long time and it used to be the case that when you phoned for an appointment, you could get one straight away - either in the morning or the afternoon of the same day and certainly if not the same day, then the day after.

Sadly, this is no longer the case.

Routine appointments or appointments for minor ailments are usually 2-4 weeks into the future.

That said, the care given is exemplary.

All staff, the doctors, nurses and reception staff are polite, courteous and take time to listen - nothing seems to be too much trouble.

Two major gripes are firstly that the surgery operates the very out-of-date practice of closing for an hour and a half at lunch-time every day - you CANNOT contact the at all surgery between 12:30 and 2pm.

A 90 min lunch-break - seriously??

What I can't fathom is that there are usually at least two reception staff so couldn't lunch-time breaks be staggered to provide some form of continuous cover?

Secondly don't be ill on a Thursday afternoon.

The surgery operates the 'Early Closing' regime that shops used to have in the 1950's and 60's.

We are nearly 1/5 of the way through the 21st century but this surgery closes at 12 noon on a Thursday.

This is very poor service in my opinion.

A third (minor) gripe is that it would be far better if you didn't have to phone repeatedly (sometimes up to 10 or more times) from 9am sharp to try to get an appointment that day.

That said, if you can get through, you can usually get an appointment for urgent cases within hours.

Overall, I am quite satisfied with the service offered by this surgery.

Areas for improvement:

1) Reception cover for the whole day - including over the lunch period 12-2pm.

2) All day cover on a Thursday - not this ridiculous 'half-day' closing.

Areas of Excellence:

The care offered by all staff at the surgery.

This could not be any better.

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Responses

Response from Upperthorpe Medical Centre 6 years ago
Upperthorpe Medical Centre

Submitted on 27/12/2017 at 15:18
Published on nhs.uk at 15:31

Dear Patient

Thank you for your posting and comments.

I am pleased to hear that despite your “gripes” with our surgery, you are happy with the quality of care provided by our GPs and staff.

• Demand for appointments has increased significantly over the years and it has not been possible to match this with resources.

Unfortunately because of the lack of Government funding together with unprecedented workload placed upon GPs and a recent increase in our patient list size, our routine appointment availability has declined over the past 12-18 months.

We are, however, constantly looking at ways in which we can improve this.

Ours is not a unique situation and unfortunately many GP surgeries are facing the same issues.

• We have historically closed at lunchtimes and Thursday afternoons and this is an area that we are currently reviewing.

However, patients can currently access our surgery 35 hours per week and can order repeat prescriptions and book/cancel appointments on line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

• The practice has now implemented a new telephone system to help manage our increasing number of incoming calls. The call management system is designed so that patients are able to both access and cancel appointments at the busiest times of the day and to help our staff deal with your call as efficiently as possible throughout our practice opening hours. We are confident that this will enable us to provide a better service to our patients, but please bear with us as we implement this new system over the coming weeks.

• Tell your MP how much you value the services provided by GP surgeries – we need the government to continue to understand the pressures general practice is under and that more needs to be done.

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