"1 hour wait times. Lack of compassion and..."

Since the takeover by DMC, my wife has not had a single pleasant experience at the practice. She consistently struggles to arrange appointments, and when she receives her appointment she is often seen up to an hour later than scheduled. This is not acceptable when you have work commitments either side of an appointment.

When you call to arrange an appointment, you assume you are going to see a GP at a GP surgery. When appointments have been booked since DMC have taken over, my wife has had appointments made to see the surgery's prescribing pharmacist on a significant number of occasions without asking if this will be ok.

When my wife spoke to the prescribing pharmacist on one occasion, explaining that there was an intimacy issue, the pharmacist proceeded by immediately asking "do you need a morning after pill?". Without many follow questions, my wife was immediately referred to the sexual health clinic for STI checks. This is unacceptable and in no way is the caring attitude you should expect form your GP surgery. My wife was extremely upset after her appointment as she needed someone to listen and to take her seriously. After her sexual health check up my wife was diagnosed with a dermatological condition by specialist on call that day. The specialist was concerned that my wife was not seen by the GP surgery and was frustrated that she had been left so long without care by her GP. My wife was asked to see her GP for a referral to a dermatologist as this could not be done by the specialist.

Subsequently, my wife made an appointment to see a doctor for a dermatologist referral and to get a prescription for codeine (recommended by her Neurologist for her longstanding migraine suffering). Once again my wife was booked in to see the prescribing pharmacist without being told as such. Upon seeing the pharmacist and explaining that a dermatologist referral was needed, she was told "oh I think the dermatologist is being removed from Medway". Only after arguing that it was important that she was referred to a dermatologist as requested by a specialist, was anything done. When asking for codeine, the prescribing pharmacist explained "I refuse to prescribe codeine", "codeine will give you a migraine" after my wife explained it has been prescribed previously for when her migraines are uncontrollable and that it is recommended by her Neurologist (specialising in migraine treatment). The pharmacist still refused and proceeded to treat my wife as if she was lying to her. Once again, this is wholly unacceptable.

I can truly say that this surgery has seen no improvement over this past year under DMC. For all of the evident faults in the surgery previously, at the very least my wife was treated with compassion.