"Empty waiting room at 8 a.m but no appts available"

Another disappointing encounter with Westgate surgery.

It was the usual scenario of trying to ring the call centre ( sorry, apparently it is a doctors' surgery with trained receptionists and not 'agents' as the recorded message calls them whilst you are kept on hold waiting until one of these busy agents can answer your call - secret agents maybe?) first thing in a morning, just before 8 a.m. No one answers because you are 5th in the queue and so you get into the car and make the 10 minute drive to the surgery. When you arrive you are still on hold but now you are 3rd in the queue. You enter the surgery, which is completely empty. The receptionist on the front desk is also on her phone. There are 2 gp's in the back office who then come out and make their separate ways to the consultation rooms. The receptionist comes off the phone and disappears into the back office. So we ring the bell on the desk. The receptionist comes out and we ask for an emergency appointment for my husband who is feeling very unwell with a persistent cough he has had for nearly 2 weeks and respiratory difficulties with wheeziness. We were told there were no appointments available not even the emergency appointments which are reserved for patients who ring from 8 a.m onwards. I asked why, when the surgery was clearly devoid of any other waiting patients, and we had seen 2 doctors entering 2 different consulting rooms, could not one of those gp's fit my husband in there and then to sound his chest and check on the persistent cough. We were told they were fully booked. After determination on our part, my husband was finally given an appointment for later in the day.

Whilst waiting, I noticed that though the tables in the waiting area were devoid of magazines ( health hazard apparently) there were a few A4 sheets dotted around on the tables announcing excitedly that Westgate surgery is to host Citizen Advice sessions in the future.

Well, good luck with that one. But shouldn't the surgery improve and perfect their method of running a gp practice before launching into a new enterprise under the same roof. They may find the only people attending the Citizen Advice sessions will be frustrated patients queuing to complain about the appointment system at Westgate surgery and its generally disorganised and chaotic organisation.