ST STEPHENS HEALTH CENTRE

No wonder the receptionist are rude the supervisors are no better it seems like all staff needs to be doing some customer service training

I have been trying to make an appointment for nearly a week. I do everything asked of me as a patient but I still have to phone to chase for an appointment. For a long time now I have felt that the processes and procedures in place at the practice are there for the benefit of the practice and not the patients. It must be quite upsetting for the elderly and those where English is their second language to face these obstacle This is what happened….. Wednesday 29/11; managed to get through to reception after a long wait to ask for an appointment and was advised that I should use the online facility which would open at 8 am until 10 am the following morning but I should get online early. J I asked why I couldn’t make an appointment now on the phone but I’m afraid I didn’t get what to me sounded like a logical response. It felt like I was up against a brick wall and wasting my breath so…… Thursday 30/11; accessed the online facility at 8 am, detailed my symptoms, stated I would prefer to see Dr Jay as I’d seen her earlier this year for the same symptoms. Received a text message on the same day @ 9.22 am from Dr Abigail Randall that she thought it best I see Dr Jay face to face and she would ask the admin team to book me in. Friday 1/12 afternoon; had not heard from the surgery so phoned and after a short time I got through to reception. They advised they would chase the admin team. Monday 4/12 midday; I still hadn’t heard from the surgery so I phoned again…..after 15 minutes I got through to reception and explained the reason for my call and the receptionist said ‘shall I book that appointment for you now?’ So having tried to book an appointment by phone on Wednesday 29/11 and advised that this wasn’t possible because I was through to a receptionist and not the admin team who book the appointments; I was however able to do so on Monday 4/12 via the person who answered the phone. Whilst I am fully appreciative of the nhs generally and the medical professionals who work for us I am fearful that the inefficiencies we hear a lot about (and which I am highlighting in this email) will be its downfall….and there are many people who cannot wait for this to happen. I’m not one of them. I note from the last report from the Care Quality Commission in October 2022 that a positive response (Y) was given to all of the categories under the heading ‘people were able to access care and treatment in a timely way’ e.g. Patients had timely access to appointments/treatment and action was taken to minimise the length of time people waited for care, treatment or advice. I’m afraid this is not my experience and hasn’t been for a while now. I’m sure there are other factors that patients are perhaps not aware of which make it difficult for health professionals to carry out their responsibilities to us the patients. However there shouldn’t be this much angst in getting an appointment and in my recent experience; 3 telephone calls, 2 of which were of significant length waiting for an answer and an online enquiry. And as a final thought I haven’t mentioned the elapsed time from the request to the actual appointment date but that’s for another time. I’d be interested in your comments on not just my recent experience documented here but the logic behind the appointment making process which seems to be applied arbitrarily and which therefore becomes confusing. Whatever the process I can say that in my experience it doesn’t work and hasn’t worked for a while. We’re patients not clients or customers and we deserve better from our local GP practice. I look forward to hearing from you. Berni Deenihan

I have met some very kind people at St stephens but this experience was terrible. Desk person treated me with contempt. I was grovellingly polite because I wanted help but she made clear not her job to help and I must go online She offered no advice on how I should do that and left me feeling beneath contempt. A truly awful experience which I do not wish to repeat.