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Impossibly bad administration

Story from nhs.uk

"Impossibly bad administration"

About: The Willow Group

My wife waited anxiously for a call which was organised from the pharmacist at 1435

No call was made

I phoned at 10 minute intervals from 1500 to enquire why no call had been made.

Having got through and received the recorded message I pressed 4 and was told this number did not answer, ditto 3,2 and 1. This was repeated until 1540 when number 2 was connected, I waited about 3 min and was told that the time did not mean anything - other that it would be morning or afternoon.

If you can make appointments at the surgery which are timed why cannot telephone appointments be timed?

Why are there periods during the day when none of the 4 options are manned?

Are you satisfied that this is acceptable? What happens to a patient who has to make the call from a public telephone?

I WOULD LIKE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS

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Responses

Response from The Willow Group 5 years ago
The Willow Group

Submitted on 12/11/2018 at 11:31
Published on nhs.uk at 12:06

Dear Mr Brian Beel,

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.

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 wife's full name and date of birth and we will be happy to look into this for you.

We will also need your wife's consent if we do not already have this.

We have had a new telephone system upgrade.

Unfortunately there have been some teething problems with this system.

Some patients are finding the new system is working much better but some patients are still having issues with getting through.

Our Technical Team are currently working on this and patients who are having issues should start to see an improvement very soon.

I do apologise and agree that getting though on the phone can be difficult.

Are telephones are manned from 08:00am until 18:30pm.

We are encouraging 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.

We do not time our telephone appointments as sometimes the clinics can run behind.

When patients are in the surgery for an appointment we are able to keep them updated with any delays with their appointment but unfortunately we are unable to do this with telephone appointments.

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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