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"Contact"

About: The Willow Group

Getting an appointment is impossible even if you’ve been told by the doctor to come back in two weeks.

You have to phone during a given half hour slot so if you can get anyone to answer the phone you are then told there are no appointments allocated and you must phone back tomorrow.

On one occasion I was confined to my bedroom floor - I couldn’t move.

No one would come and help me so I had no option but to call 999.

Even the paramedics couldn’t get through to the surgery but after 2 hours of trying they were promised a doctor would arrive at my home - the doctor never arrived but the nurse who did told me the doctor doesn’t do house calls and she couldn’t prescribe what I needed!

Ludicrous system and I’m relatively young and computer literate - I cannot imagine how the elderly cope.

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Responses

Response from The Willow Group 5 years ago
The Willow Group

Submitted on 24/09/2018 at 11:09
Published on nhs.uk at 12:06

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for bringing your concern 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. 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. The Department of Health is now admitting that there are serious problems with GP recruitment. Independent organisations agree that GP workload is spiralling out of control. Over the last couple of years General Practice has become far more challenging, with rising workload, a population with more complex health needs and greater demand for access. The aging population has increased workload in primary care, because elderly patients often have complex health needs. But almost every patient is more complicated to manage.It cannot be extended without investment in more doctors and nurses.

We do offer our SDAS for on the day issues. All I can do is apologise and reassure you that we are constantly looking at ways to improve our routine appointment system.

There is a problem with the phone system within The Willow Group. The system is old and requires updating to cope with the volume of calls being received.

All I can do is apologise and agree that getting though on the phone is difficult and we are aware and I am very pleased to say that our new system will go live on the 27th September.

Our new telephone number is 02382311034. We have encouraged 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.

For obvious reasons we cannot respond to individual cases on NHS Choices, but if you would like to discuss this further please contact my team on FGCCG.mywillowexperience@nhs.net with your full name and date of birth and we will be happy to look into this for you.

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 Langridge

Patient Experience Manager

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