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GPs are amazing, however gaining access to...

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"GPs are amazing, however gaining access to..."

About: Brentfield Medical Centre

Firstly, I would like to start by saying the GPs I have encountered at Brentfield Medical Center have been thorough and professional, often providing diagnosis and printing an accompanying information leaflet to help you understand what is wrong or what can be done in terms of symptom relief. Likewise, the receptionists have also treated me with dignity and respect and are often empathetic when you contact them. However, getting through to the surgery by phone is almost impossible. Booking an appointment that is less that 4weeks away is virtually impossible & advice that you have to call in the morning to get a same day appointment is extremely misleading. You will attempt to call at 8:30, as requested, and you will find that you are left on hold for well over 45mins; or the phone call is terminated without explanation or human contact; or you have been attempting to get through for so long that there are no appointments for that day left and you are left with no other choice but to book an appointment a month away. I understand the move to an electronic appointment system is being introduced, but if, like me, you prefer to receive human interaction during times of illness, ill health, stress, worry and anxiety, then there should be a viable medium, whereby patients can contact the surgery and receive a response within an appropriate time frame. Thank you

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Responses

Response from Brentfield Medical Centre 4 years ago
Brentfield Medical Centre

Submitted on 28/05/2019 at 17:39
Published on nhs.uk at 18:06

thank you for taking the time to share your experience and we are pleased that the care you have received from our GPs and staff has been good.

We share your frustration at the pressure on our telephone system.

We have managed to reduce the demand on our phone system from 14000 calls per month in 2017 to around 9000 now.

We normally have 50 calls in the queue when the phone system goes live at 8.30am.

We are not replacing our reception team with an electronic only system but are encouraging as many people as possible to use on line access and the new Econsultation process from our website to prevent people waiting on the phone system.

We have staff constantly checking and responding to the practice email (breccg.brentfieldmc@nhs.net) and answering queries.

The Econsultations guarantee a GP response with in 24 hours.

We fully appreciate that using the internet does not work for every patient but for those who can it does make a real difference in the pressure on the phone system.

We are also able to offer appointments at the Brent GP Hub which are bookable seven days a week.

We have a reception team of 6 people working from 7.45am to 7.30pm who cover the front desk and the telephones.

We do not financially in position to employ more receptionists so we will continue to work with our patients and the other local practices to try and find a solution to this problem.

We do not underestimate how frustrating this is for patients.

We monitor on a daily basis the wait times and how often people are calling to try and support frequent callers in other ways to reach us without having to phone.

If you would like to contact the practice manager she would be very happy to discuss with you and if you have any ideas on how we can work together please do not hesitate to share them.

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