Long Lee Surgery

Always at least 10 people ahead of you in the queue when calling any of the numbers provided regardless of the time of day. Takes well over half an hour to get through to anyone. Terrible appointment availability, can't book routine nurse appointments more than 3 weeks in advance, and there is no availability at all to see anyone at the Long Lee site. I was told there were no doctors there, and apologised as I had assumed it was a doctors' surgery. "It is." First appointment after moving to the area, necessary to get my repeat prescription was booked 2 weeks in advance as an emergency (??) as they had absolutely no availability despite knowing I was almost out of medication. The trainee GP immediately wanted to take long standing medication from my repeat despite it having literally saved my life after suffering severe untreated pain for several years, because I am "so young" (mid-30s, and at least 8 years older than her) and on opioid patches after trying everything else available and getting no relief. I had no idea they taught doctors in medical school that age dictates possible pain levels. I had already weighed up the risks with my previous, experienced GP who took the time to get to know me over months of appointments before we both agreed that this medication would be best for me. She wants to review me in June, and if I'm still in pain (I will always be in pain), she wants to remove the medication as it "clearly isn't working." I would say going from an 11/10 to a 5/10 is working, but I'm just the person who lives with the pain, so I obviously know nothing. I have been requesting access to my full medical record online as I had at my previous surgery for 2 months, left several messages, and have been completely ignored. No explanation at all, just flatly refused. I had booked to see a nurse for some blood tests requested by a consultant at hospital, and was seen by a health practitioner who had only been doing the job for 2 days. Not her fault, of course, but given the amount of blood needing to be taken and reception knowing it was complex when I booked, it would have been nice to see someone who had any idea what they were doing. She struggled to find a vein and so after 20 minutes asked her superior to help. He was also completely unable to find a vein, and spent a good amount of time wiggling the needle around in my arm, to the point that my whole arm was numb by the time he succeeded. I never had any of these problems with my previous surgery.
Original Comment Report...

Always at least 10 people ahead of you in the queue when calling any of the numbers provided regardless of the time of day. Takes well over half an hour to get through to anyone. Terrible appointment availability, can't book routine nurse appointments more than 3 weeks in advance, and there is no availability at all to see anyone at the Long Lee site. I was told there were no doctors there, and apologised as I had assumed it was a doctors' surgery. "It is." First appointment after moving to the area, necessary to get my repeat prescription was booked 2 weeks in advance as an emergency (??) as they had absolutely no availability despite knowing I was almost out of medication. The trainee GP immediately wanted to take long standing medication from my repeat despite it having literally saved my life after suffering severe untreated pain for several years, because I am "so young" (mid-30s, and at least 8 years older than her) and on opioid patches after trying everything else available and getting no relief. I had no idea they taught doctors in medical school that age dictates possible pain levels. I had already weighed up the risks with my previous, experienced GP who took the time to get to know me over months of appointments before we both agreed that this medication would be best for me. She wants to review me in June, and if I'm still in pain (I will always be in pain), she wants to remove the medication as it "clearly isn't working." I would say going from an 11/10 to a 5/10 is working, but I'm just the person who lives with the pain, so I obviously know nothing. I have been requesting access to my full medical record online as I had at my previous surgery for 2 months, left several messages, and have been completely ignored. No explanation at all, just flatly refused. I had booked to see a nurse for some blood tests requested by a consultant at hospital, and was seen by a health practitioner who had only been doing the job for 2 days. Not her fault, of course, but given the amount of blood needing to be taken and reception knowing it was complex when I booked, it would have been nice to see someone who had any idea what they were doing. She struggled to find a vein and so after 20 minutes asked her superior to help. He was also completely unable to find a vein, and spent a good amount of time wiggling the needle around in my arm, to the point that my whole arm was numb by the time he succeeded. I never had any of these problems with my previous surgery.
Original Comment Report...