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Hope Not To Get Ill

Story from nhs.uk

"Hope Not To Get Ill"

About: Clifton Road Surgery

Having been diagnosed with an illness which requires ongoing care I need to order repeat prescriptions on a monthly basis.

These are never ready when promised and always require at least two visits to collect.

Having received the results of a blood test, and being advised by a specialist to visit my doctor, I attempted this.

What an exercise in futility this turned out to be.

I was advised not to try ringing in the morning as the switchboard would be busy, so I walked to the surgery to be told that there were no appointments available as they had already been pre booked.

Presumably this was by people who had actually managed to get through on the telephone.

After seeing a specialist I was given a note to pass to the doctor to advise them of the medication that they had prescribed.

Unfortunately when I tried to hand it to the receptionist she refused to accept it as she could not issue prescriptions.

As I tried to explain that it was not a prescription she became quite agitated and told me to take it to the pharmacy at the hospital.

I was also advised to have a flu jab and a pneumonia jab.

I was advised by the same receptionist that the pneumonia jab was expensive and that the surgery only had limited supplies of it, so it was unlikely that I would be able to have it.

Eventually this situation was resolved.

To sum up.

I would strongly advise against visiting Clifton Road surgery if you require a vaccination, would like to pass a note to a doctor, require a repeat prescription, or would like to see a doctor.

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Responses

Response from Clifton Road Surgery 5 years ago
Clifton Road Surgery

Submitted on 06/02/2019 at 15:24
Published on nhs.uk at 16:06

I am sorry you have experienced problems when you visited Clifton Road Surgery.

Unfortunately I cannot answer the problems you encountered specifically but I will try to provide you with reassurance on the matters you have highlighted.

If your prescription request is received by 2pm, your prescription will be ready to collect 48 hours later after 4pm. If this hasn’t been the case there may have been a specific reason for this. Unfortunately without more details I am unable to comment further.

We do have lots of appointments available to book each day, these are “Book on the Day” appointments which are available to everyone; the book on the day appointments open up at 8am every day. These can be booked over the phone, in the surgery or online. Although, unfortunately there can be a high demand and these can go quickly.

Our pre-bookable appointments open up each day at 8am for 2 days, 1, 2 and 4 weeks in advance.

For patients with an urgent problem/medical need we also have a duty doctor appointed each day.

I understand your frustration in trying to get an appointment and I can assure you that we do everything we can to make sure there are enough appointments for patients who want to be seen on the day and those that would like to pre-book.

With regards to the prescription note you brought in to us after seeing your specialist at the hospital, I’m afraid our receptionists have been instructed not to take these, in line with the standard hospital contract and hospitals are aware they should not be providing patients with these. For our GPs to take on responsibility for issuing further medication, the specialist at the hospital needs to provide us with a relevant clinic letter, they are aware of this. We know this can be frustrating for patients and we have continued to remind the hospital but I’m afraid they continue to give these to patients.

If you were eligible for your influenza and pneumonia vaccinations then we should be able to provide you with these. The only thing I can assume the receptionist was trying to say was that maybe we were out of stock on that day. In which case you should have had an appointment booked for you at a time when we would have stock; I hope this situation was sorted for you.

Again, without the details to allow me to look into your case I am unable to give you a more specific response.

We are sorry that you feel unhappy with the service as we like all our patients to have a positive experience at Clifton Road Surgery.

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