"Hard to get an appointment"

I received your comment yesterday on my return from annual leave so I apologise for the delay in replying.

I am glad to hear that you are happy as we all are here with our new location and also with the patient care you receive from our Doctors.

We are sorry to hear that you also have some issues with the service we have provided you.

Your main issue being the telephone.

Since receiving your comments I have contacted our Informatics team requesting the facility of picking up incoming calls from other telephones in our administration office and have also requested if possible another telephone line to be installed. At present we only have 1 telephone line coming in and we appreciate it can be difficult for patients to get through especially in the morning when the telephone line is mostly active. This is the reason why we prefer to give test results out after 11.30am to free the phone as much as possible for emergencies, patient’s queries that need dealing with immediately and appointments. Once a decision has been made with my request to the purchasing department I will report back to you.

We are mostly always able to provide the next available appointment within a couple of days, but due to patients wanting to see a Doctor of their choice unfortunately this is not always possible with all Doctors. We have appointed a new Doctor who will be joining the practice Monday 6th August and she will be available 5 days per week as opposed to before this we did only have 1 Doctor available on a Thursday. When Doctor joins the practice we will also be increasing our appointment sessions by 12 further appointments per week.

If you would like to discuss your concerns further please do not hesitate to contact me by telephone or in person.

Regards

Elaine Stockton

Practice Manager