"Be prepared to go to the A and E to be seen."

after phoning to get an appointment for my 7 year old that had a swollen eye for the second time in 1 week I was told by the receptionist that there were no appointments left that day the earliest appointment was in two weeks I explained that this would be to long to wait obviously as it could be a serious situation she told me the only way you would get seen was to phone in the morning and if lucky you might get an appointment that day based on a first come first served basis which also included people that turn up at the surgery for appointments, the other option she gave me was put me on the list for a duty doctor to call me within the hour so I agreed to do this.

Within the hour a doctor did call and asked several questions and then summed up the situation as it could be probably this and probably that but nothing as to convince me he was familiar with the problem or arranging to see my son or the swelling of his eye lid, after all how can you be diagnosed over the phone this was just ridiculous and a waste of time on both sides so you can imagine when it comes to getting seen it is a lottery and leaves you with having to visit the A and E where you will after a while get seen (depending on the urgency) which in my mind is for absolute emergency's and not for general appointments. This health center may have expanded but the service has shrunk and leaves me with not much faith in this practice. I can only put it down to not enough staff to the amount of registered patience. Also the attitude of the receptionists is that of an uncaring nature and contentious to any comments you have my view is they should leave the diagnosing or judging to the experts and just do the job they are employed to do. The practice needs more "Indians as there is too many Chiefs"