"Telephoning for an appointment"

Dear Aegc,

I am very sorry to learn of your recent experience in having difficulty in accessing the surgery via the telephone. We do experience a very high volume of telephone calls every day especially first thing in the morning.

In an attempt to try and meet the ever increasing demand which is placed upon the surgery we have already increased staff levels and we can assure you that every effort is being made to alleviate this.

Our reception team work extremely hard in these very difficult times in trying to make every patient’s contact with the surgery as time efficient as possible.

As you go on to say that when you do get through you are advised that all the appointments ‘have gone’... We are currently operating a telephone triage system whereby the receptionist will only take information from the patient to pass onto the doctor, and that no actual GP appointments are given at that point. A GP will then either telephone the patient directly or if they feel the patient needs to be seen they will arrange a face to face appointment. Unfortunately there are times when our services are overstretched resulting in non urgent cases being deferred.

We appreciate feedback from the community and can only assure you that we are trying hard to improve our services based upon the comments made by our patients.

Should you wish to discuss any future difficulties you may experience, please do not hesitate to contact the practice.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs A Hamer

Office Manager

In the absence of Mr M Garner, Practice Manager