contact the GP has become. I used to be happy with the service I received from Haslucks Green Medical Centre - easy online booking system and I was usually able to get through on the phone in 10-15 minutes maximum. Since the merger with SHP it has been nothing short of abysmal. My husband spent 2 and a half hours on the phone today, including being cut off and being sent from one queue to another. He totalled 96 people in the queue in front of him. Luckily he is working from home at the moment so he was able to continue working whilst waiting in the queue, this would not be possible for many people, including myself as a teacher. Something has got to be done, it cannot continue in this way.
as he needed to see a doctor. He was position 28 in the queue. 35 minutes later when he got through they advised him they needed to transfer him and in the process cut him off! He then gave up all very stressed by the experience. I called then on his behalf the following week because I knew he had to see a doctor. I waited 25 minutes, position 18 in the queue. When I got through they needed to transfer me again and told me I wouldn’t get cut off and it wasn’t very busy so I wouldn’t wait long! When I got through I was position 48 in the queue, can you imagine how I felt? I gave up and tried to book him an appointment on line. He is 80, how can the elder generation cope with this..? He can’t even use online facilities.
a disgrace. They have taken decisions how best to serve the community without consulting the patients (customers) or understanding the needs of these. The surgery as I have now discovered has been switched to a Mum and Baby unit. There are older patients in the borough who cannot drive and it is almost impossible to get to the Monkspath clinic by public transport and not surprisingly will not take Taxis. Therefore without imposing on neighbours they can not get a personal consultation, if you can even get one.
It feels that the doctors have retreated behind a barricade, where you shall not get through unless you are deaths door and quite frankly that is unlikely from my experience of an older neighbour who couldn't get to see a doctor properly and did die. Whether it was incurable or not from the beginning I do not know, but she did end up dying from cancer. I'm sure the practice feels it is doing its best, but that is not how the community (its customers) feel. We feel we have we been abandoned. I have complained to the practice about a number of issues, which have been ultimately resolved but i should not have had to do that.
I have taken up with local councillors who tell me they are powerless to do anything as they have no say in what happens and refer me to my local MP.
Whilst I understand their situation, the local MP has no more power to sort the issue.
So how do we make a local service accountable to the public (customers) it serves?
The current approach does not serve the patient (customer) and is Ivory Tower. they know best and the patient (customer) has no say it what is right for them.
We have local surgeries for a reason. Shutting them down, making patients (customers) queue for an hour in a call waiting system, if you can even get in a queue are not the way to TREAT patients (customers), making it so difficult to get a consultation or even a service such as a PSA Test that patients give up, are unacceptable.
