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Diabolical

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"Diabolical"

About: The Willow Group

I suffer with mental health issues.

I am apparently not poorly enough according to the Hewat Centre to warrant their support.

Despite having episodes of suicidal ideology due to PTSD.

Yet, a little too much for GPs to manage, so I am limbo in the middle.

I miss my old practice that was Stoke Road Medical Centre.

I was lucky enough to have consistency with GPs that knew me.

I felt very supported by them.

Not always easy to get an appointment however, but at least I could, even using the app.

Well that is virtually impossible to do now, whether you phone, whether you go online.

Then you are left hanging on the phone for an eternity, this is not good for me.

I am unable to join the early morning queue to "try" and get an appointment.

I absolutely miss the way it was before.

Change for me is very unsettling.

I do NOT want to be traipsing here and there to different sites to see a health care professional, I just want to belong to one competent practice.

The thought of having to go to different places does nothing for my anxiety levels.

I don't "do" in-consistency very well.

I like to know where I am.

If I didn't like my GPs at Stoke Road, I'd have gone elsewhere in the first place, but I have always rated them highly.

I am though, very sadly and reluctantly, considering registering elsewhere to another practice that is based in one place as, Stoke Road once was.

However, now being a part of Willow Group it no-longer seems to be able to meet my support needs. It's just not working for me any more.

I really don't want to, go but feel like I have little choice.

If I could, have any wish, it would be to have my wonderful practice back, with the familiar friendly faces and excellent medical care I have recieved over the years.

I really miss them and that.

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Responses

Response from The Willow Group 5 years ago
The Willow Group

Submitted on 05/07/2018 at 11:32
Published on nhs.uk at 12:06

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention, I know this can be difficult and we do value all feedback.

I am very sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the service that we are providing.

Our telephone system is old and requires updating to cope with the volume of calls being received.

We have now secured the funding we need to update the system and work has started behind the scenes.

We are very hopeful that our telephones will be upgraded this summer.

I do apologise and agree that getting though on the phone is difficult.

We are encouraging patients who are able, to communicate with us via social media, email and on-line services to do so to try to free up the phones for patients who do not have this option.

As a practice, we too find it unacceptable that on occasion patients are having to wait a month to see a GP for a routine appointment. There is increasingly widespread recognition that General Practice is under huge strain. Independent organisations agree that GP workload is spiralling out of control. We have recruited a GP and we are hopefully that we will have another GP on board very soon! We are always actively looking to employee more GP's which will share the workload and offer more appointments to our patients.

Please be reassured that if you only want to be seen at our Stoke Road site you can request this.

If you would like to discuss this further with me please email me on FGCCG.mywillowexperience@nhs.net.

We are sorry that you are unhappy with the service provided and hope you feel that we do recognise how frustrating and upsetting this can be for our patients. I hope I have gone some way to reassure you that we are aware and are constantly looking for solutions to it.

Yours faithfully

Kevarnna Golds

Patient Experience Manager

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