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Good luck booking an appointment if you have to...

Story from nhs.uk

"Good luck booking an appointment if you have to..."

About: Dr L Freeman & Partners

I needed to book a non urgent appointment to see a doctor.

Nothing available and not even able to book a few weeks ahead.

Only option is to turn up at 8am and wait.

I explained I cannot do this as I have to work for a living and pre book time off for appointments.

My employer will not allow me to leave work at 8 am and get back at who knows what time.

Totally unsampethitic receptionist who even suggested I go to a weekend or evening out of course emergency doctors - not only using up an emergency appointment but no use to me as I need to see my own practice doctors.

Worst appointment system in the world.

So, no appointment booked and I have to keep ringing every day until I'm lucky enough to get through in the 5 minute window between prebookable appointments being released and all filled up.

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Responses

Response from Dr L Freeman & Partners 5 years ago
Dr L Freeman & Partners

Submitted on 15/10/2018 at 11:53
Published on nhs.uk at 13:06

Thank you for your comments.

We appreciated patients taking the time to post both negative and positive comments so that we can act on them.

As you will be aware we are currently in the process of joining with Swillington Health Practice, as a consequence of this we have been unable to determine specific appointment offerings for November in as timely a manner as we would have hoped.

However we have now ratified the appointments and they will be available very shortly.

During this period we have increased the availability of the book on the day appointments and we also have the Urgent Assessment Clinics. It is unfortunate that your employer requires you to have a specific appointment time as this restricts your ability to access appropriate appointments.

With regards to the weekend and evening appointments, all of the reception staff will offer these routinely to the working community in order to increase the opportunity for those that struggle to access daily appointments. These are NOT emergency appointments but specifically to increase the working communities ability to access GP care.

All of the GPs at these appointments will be able to offer the same range of GP service as any of our GPs and some of the appointments are staffed by the GPs from the practice.

Sincerely

Nick Gwatkin

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