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Brilliant..when you manage to get an appointment

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"Brilliant..when you manage to get an appointment"

About: Hollinwood Medical Practice

The surgery itself is a nice new building. It's modern and clean looking.

My issue is with the lack of staff on the phone in the morning when people are trying to get emergency appointments.

This morning, I called as soon as the surgery opened (at 8am) and the phone was just ringing and ringing for 10 mins.

I continued to try until 8.30, at which point someone finally answered the phone but stated that all the emergency appointments are gone.

I told them that I am pregnant and need antibiotics (I believe I have a water infection ) , to which they replied they could make me an appointment at a different surgery in failsworth.

I feel that most of the time it is much easier to go to the walk in centre and get seen than it is to actually get seen at my own gp surgery, which is ridiculous.

Given the nature of my problem it is going to be extremely uncomfortable for me to travel to failsworth to see another doctor. There should maybe be a separate day available for the elderly, children and pregnant women to ensure all emergency matters are dealt with in vulnerable patients.

I don't expect special treatment during pregnancy, however I wasn't even offered an appointment on a different day, was literally just referred elsewhere. I don't understand why they take on so many patients if they can't deal with us.

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Responses

Response from Hollinwood Medical Practice 6 years ago
Hollinwood Medical Practice

Submitted on 19/01/2018 at 12:40
Published on nhs.uk at 14:02

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for taking the time to leave a review.

I am very sorry to read that you are unsatisfied with the service we are providing. I would like to fully investigate this review and would be grateful if you could contact me vanessa.morris1@nhs.net to enable me to do so.

I would like however, to address some of your points:

The phone service in the morning, from the date the review was submitted on the 4th January 2018, this was a Thursday morning following the Christmas Bank holidays. We had two GPs in this particular day, an Advanced Nurse Practitioner and fewer staff members around due to annual leave therefore I am sorry it took the time you state to get through to us.

However, on this particular day we booked 30 urgent appointments following the calls coming through at 8am so I can assure you we were working on answering all calls as quickly and efficiently as possible.

You state that you had a possible water infection and that you told us you were pregnant. I have asked the Team what they would do in such an event and all said, should we not be able to accommodate a face to face appointment we would ask you to bring a sample to the surgery to get it dipped and if symptomatic the doctor could prescribe. We also would offer the walk in centre appropriately if you wanted to be seen face to face on the day. The Hub which you are referring to is sometimes held at a practice in Failsworth. This is a service Oldham CCG has set up to help practices with demand and to provide extra availability. I’m very surprised you were not offered an appointment the following day with the Advanced Nurse Practitioner as this is our normal protocol. If you would contact me then I can investigate this.

Again, I would like to express my sincere apologies that you felt dissatisfied and, be assured, we are always looking at ways to improve our service. Thank you for your feedback.

Hollinwood Medical Practice

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