"totally unsatisfactory practice"

I am a carer for my Dad who has been a patient at this surgery for about 7 years. I live in Chelmsford so it is not easy for me to just pop into the surgery if I have a problem on days when I am not in Clacton. Until fairly recently I had no trouble at all and found it very easy to care for my Dad with his medical needs as the surgery were always able to accommodate the fact that I live a fair distance away. That has now all changed. If I need to contact the surgery it is near enough impossible to get through. Whilst recently trying to make an appointment for a warfarin check it was a nightmare. At the time you could not call in to make an appointment and it had to be done over the telephone. After many attempts to get through and being told the average wait for my call to be answered was 25 minutes and several times of 48 minutes I got through only to be told they did not have any appointments for the foreseeable future with a nurse to do this check. I therefore had to take my Dad to Clacton Hospital to have this done. I did not mind doing this but I then had the trouble of trying to ring the surgery for the result of this. I waited one time for over 30 minutes for my call to be answered for me then to be cut off. It is not the odd time that the wait is over 25 minutes. I tested before writing this review and the wait at the moment is 52 minutes. This is outrageous. When I called in and spoke to the receptionist she did say that they have now had to allow people to book appointments for things like warfarin checks at the desk now but any other enquiries etc had to be made through the hub. This surgery never used to be like this. They need to seriously look at this urgently. My Dad is lucky that I sort all his tablets and appointments out for him but I worry about other elderly people who might not be able to cope on their own when trying to sort things out. This could have very serious consequences if it is not sorted out soon. My Dad says himself that he wouldn't have the energy to try and sort things out for himself and would just give up with his tablets and appointments etc. My own Doctors Surgery is brilliant and covers a very wide area so it can be done . To add salt to the wound, whilst I was trying to get the result of my Dads warfarin check he received a letter from the surgery telling him how important it was to regularly have his warfarin check and he needed to make an appointment. Erm yes we know. You couldn't make it up.