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Appointments not Available

Story from nhs.uk

"Appointments not Available"

About: Forest Hill Group Practice

Unfortunately this practice has implemented a system where appointments are released at 10 am every Tuesday. This means at this time the phone line is jammed and it is difficult to obtain an appointment. The same system is applied to online appointments where very few appointments are released. One of the underlying problems is a shortage of resources to meet the needs of a larger customer base. A better solution will be to modernise (eg. more help online, video appointments etc), preserving face-to-face appointments for people who need them. This practice really needs a stronger management team and engaged focus group of end-clients to drive requirements.

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Responses

Response from Forest Hill Group Practice 4 years ago
Forest Hill Group Practice

Submitted on 15/07/2019 at 12:04
Published on nhs.uk at 13:06

Dear Patient

The practice appreciates your feedback and apologise for giving you course to complain.

The practice launched a new appointment system early this year, as patients complained about the long wait for appointments.

With the new system, face to face and online appointments are released each morning at 10am making available appointments spread over the following 3 days, 7 days, 10 days and 14 days.

This is aimed at eliminating the waiting time for patients.

The practice will usually have 6 members of staff taking calls at this time.

The practice has recently introduced an e-Consult service.

This service caters for NON-URGENT medical issues whereby patients can email their health issue to the practice. A response will be sent to the patient up to two working days.

It is important to note the NON-URGENT medical issue emphasised in this notification.

Access to this service can be found on our website.

The increasing demands on the NHS Services is widely spread and to help ease the demand for appointments on practices and give patients additional choices, the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in most areas have put in place Hubs where practices are able to book appointments for patients to attend for routine and urgent appointments throughout the week - 8am to 8pm. The Lister Primary Care Centre is one of such Hubs, but unfortunately most of our patients are unwilling to go to the Lister.

We continue to encourage patients to join the PPG to help work together with the practice in providing services that meets patients’ needs.

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