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Getting worse, I'm afraid !!

Story from nhs.uk

"Getting worse, I'm afraid !!"

About: Swallowfield Medical Practice

Sorry for the review heading I have given, however I feel it is suiting to my last experience.

Overall the surgery, staff and doctors are excellent and my review is probably not their fault, but someone needs to take the responsibility or use these reviews to help to get what they need (funding etc) from their NHS sources.

First of all, when I came onto the Practice website to leave feedback, the form for positive feedback is available, but the form for negative feedback is conveniently not available. Probably not worth mentioning how difficult it is to get an appointment, usually after I have recovered from whatever I wanted to see the doctor about, so totally pointless !! My last visit was simply to have my ears checked, as I suspected they needed syringing, which they did.

So I tried to get an appointment with the nurse, only to be told that this service is no longer available, so I had no choice but to spend £75 to have them done by Leighton's Opticians, totally unacceptable !! If I could not afford this, what's the alternative !! Get nothing done, get a nasty infection and then cost the NHS even more money !!

I just feel that it's best just never to get sick, because it's proving harder and harder to get help !!

Again, not the practices fault, but not mine either !! To finish off, completing this online review was far from user friendly, most fields already have text in them and to put a comment, I had to delete and backspace all the text that was already there...does no one test these before releasing them to the patients!!

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Responses

Response from Swallowfield Medical Practice 4 years ago
Swallowfield Medical Practice

Submitted on 07/08/2019 at 08:45
Published on nhs.uk at 09:05

"Getting worse, I'm afraid"

Thank you for taking the time to leave this feedback.

Although I am obviously disappointed that you are frustrated with something that is beyond our control (NHS funding) I was at least heartened to see you had also commented "overall the surgery, staff and doctors are excellent"

The funding for ear syringing has been removed at local level. Local government offices have reviewed the services needed within the community as they have to reconcile those services against the budget they have available.

Sadly there is not a bottomless pit of money for the NHS and someone (at a much higher level than GPs or their staff) decides what services that can or cannot be commission.

Having said all of that, if our nurses have space and are able, they will always try and help (despite the fact that any work we carry out outside of the NHS contract we are not reimbursed for).

I know money is an unpopular topic but funding is essential to survival of the NHS.

If we do choose to carry out such work (like ear syringing) the practice pays for it: for the nurses time, for electricity to run the equipment, lighting, reception staff to book appointments - the list goes on and on.

None of that is reimbursed and this is sadly not sustainable for us, no matter how much we would like to be able to help.

If you would like to discuss this in a less public domain, please do get in touch with me (Helen Knipe) my details are on our website.

And as a postscript - I would like to add that the feedback forms on our website are for all types of feedback although positive feedback is always preferable!

Thank you again for taking the time to complete this feedback: I look forward to hearing from you personally.

Kind regards, Helen

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