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Great surgery

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"Great surgery"

About: West End Road Surgery

The practitioners there are fantastic, they are friendly, warm and professional; even when they have had a very long day. The reception staff are very busy so can be a little frosty / abrupt especially if you get them on the phone however they are soo busy that its not very easy to get through on the phone (I have managed once in 5 years). In person the reception staff are pretty good considering how busy they are, I've watched them and I would not want their stressful jobs. Appointments are usually quite easy to get in comparison to other surgeries I have been at in the past however the only way to get an appointment seems to be in person as the phone answering is really an issue. I have previously tried the App advertised in the surgery which didn't work (it could have been my phone, I haven't bothered with it since), if the App/website online booking is a good system (like the GUM booking website) and was to work this could really take the pressure off the reception meaning they would be less stressed on the phone and face to face and give a warmer slower paced service to the older patients who are not tech savvy, get a little confused, are hard of hearing, and cant just hop in the car or walk to the surgery effortlessly.

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Responses

Response from West End Road Surgery 5 years ago
West End Road Surgery

Submitted on 20/07/2018 at 11:56
Published on nhs.uk at 13:06

We are very sorry that you have had some difficulty accessing us on the telephone.

Surveys are conducted by NHS England and ourselves, and telephone access has never been shown to be a problem. Our aim at Bitterne Surgery is to answer our telephone calls within three rings.

The telephones are constantly in use and we understand that at certain times of the day it can take longer to get through to us and apologise for this; but over many years our system of appointment booking has enabled us to maintain the excellent access to appointments that you speak of.

As you say, our receptionists are very busy, and we are sorry that they may have come across as frosty or abrupt; that is never their intention.

We do offer some appointments on-line but have found that our patients appear to prefer to telephone for their appointments.

The App did have some problems initially, but we are not aware of any at the moment. Our receptionists always aim to give each patient their best attention and are able to offer more help where it is felt to be necessary in cases such as you state above.

We would like to thank you for taking the time to add your comments, and we always discuss these at our Practice meetings to ascertain whether we are able to make any improvements from our patient feed-back.

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