SHP - Shirley Medical Centre

Moved practice now because this practice seems to actively shut down appointments. Everybody had to phone in the morning for appointment, and under this system obviously it's a lottery who gets phone answered.

Phone lines constantly busy as partnership has got larger. Very hard to ever get through. Have tried for over a week and heating everyone else having the same experience. No consistency with GP who sees you which makes life very difficult and frustrating with more complex medial issues.

I first tried to contact them on the 14th by telephone, to be told I was number 39 in the queue, at which point I tried their online system, but this told me that my symptoms required talking to a doctor, but did not offer that option online.

Yesterday I coughed up some blood and was prompted to try again. I tried their telephone service only to get the message this time that their call handling facility was “at capacity” and was not offered any chance to leave a message or talk to anyone at all. At this point I called 111 who after triage said they would arrange for my G.P. to call me. After about an hour, I received a text message redirecting me to the G.P.s online service. Then on attempting to use their online system, I got the response “the server has stopped responding”. This remained the case for over an hour. I sent two reply messages to the text number and some minutes later was called by a G.P.

The service provided by the G.P. was good and my condition is now being diagnosed, but the hoops I had to jump through just to contact someone I feel was unacceptable.