"Staff members"

Hello, please accept my apologies for taking so long to respond to your comments. It is not through lack of concern, just that we have been incredibly busy as we have several doctors off sick at the moment unfortunately. I am so sorry that you have been upset like this. I agree that it is very frustrating when you are waiting for help to see members of staff apparently doing nothing. Obviously I was not present at that moment in time. Our reception staff work very hard. We are conscious of the need to ensure patients can make contact with us as easily as possible. All the receptionists have a monitor on their screens showing them how many patients are waiting for them to answer the phones and all know that is the first thing they should be doing. However staff do need to be able to relax and have a laugh - this releases tension and helps them to do a better job. It may be that you caught them laughing for a moment but they work really hard and in a concentrated way for most of the time. They are human beings and laughter has been shown to be good for peoples mental health. In a job as stressful as this it is quite important. The staff know that they should be watching for queues at the front desk as well as queues on the phone systems so that we can assist patients as quickly as possible. We will discuss this together. Again, apologies that you were made to feel neglected.