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Extremely unhelpful

Story from nhs.uk

"Extremely unhelpful"

About: Chapelgreen Practice

I’ve been let down by Chapelgreen Practice. I started calling at 8am. I was cut off once - in total it took 30 mins to get through to someone. I asked for an urgent appointment - I was put on the nurses triage list instead. I explained that I would be unlikely to answer my phone but was put on the list nonetheless. As anticipated, I missed the call. I phoned back during my lunch break (12.30 - 1.30) to be told by the automated message that the surgery is now closed for lunch. I sent them an email (no reply - what a surprise). I then phoned up and spoke to someone again at 5.30pm to be told there were no appointments available. I reiterated that I had explained that I’d be unlikely to answer the nurses phone call - she said that was the only way to get an urgent appointment. What a flawed system. I now have no other option but to go and wait for hours on end in A&E for something that my GP should have been able to assist me with.

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Responses

Response from Chapelgreen Practice 4 years ago
Chapelgreen Practice

Submitted on 23/08/2019 at 08:26
Published on nhs.uk at 11:06

Dear Patient,

Thank you for bringing your concerns to the attention of the practice. The practice is committed to providing a high quality, patient-focused service. Opinions from patients are taken very seriously, as we want every patient to feel satisfied with the services we provide.

Unfortunately due to the sensitivity of NHS Email and with some emails treated as spam we have checked and your email was automatically put in the "junk" folder so we do apologise for this and for any distress caused.

In the meantime it may interest you to know some of our appointment figures for last week;

Patients seen in routine appointments 1,131

Patients who failed to attend for appointments 35

Patients triaged over the phone by a Nurse or GP 317

Patients seen urgently the same day 94 including home visits

The purpose of our Triage service is that patients are able to take calls especially when they are asking for an urgent appointment to enable an assessment to be made by the triage nurse or doctor, during our closure we deal with urgent prescriptions, and normal day to day tasks and catching up on numerous work and it is vital that during the hour of closure this is done to allow all members of staff to be able to deal with patients when we open the doors and phone lines at 1.30 pm.

You could have contacted the National Triage Line 111 during the 12.30 to 1.30 who would have triaged your call and then if it was felt you needed to be seen an appointment would have been offered, and full details of this service is on our website, or on the NHS website.

We do hope that you have managed to be seen but hope you understand that all calls require to be triaged especially if a patient is asking for an urgent appointment, so that an a clinician can determine the timescale or if the patient should be directed to A&E if deemed necessary.

Chapelgreen Practice

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