Southglade Medical Practice

Reply from Southglade Medical Practice
Tue, 11 Dec 2018 08:48:54 Z

Thank you for your feedback and comments, we take all feedback seriously and use this to help improve our services. However, your feedback goes against all the feedback and survey comments we have had since taking over Southglade. We have increased the number of appointments available - with a GP being here 5 days a week and more nursing appointments and have also increased patient numbers as a result of the improved service. What comes across from comments from patients is the friendliness and caring attitude of all the team. While it is always busy getting through on the phone at 8.00am we have increased the number of receptionists available to take calls first thing so patients are not waiting so long. We have been publicising that there is an issue with the phone line that the supplier has not yet been able to solve where when patients get the "holding in a queue" message you do not then get holding music, just silence - so you can think you have been cut off when you are still queuing. We are continuing to try to resolve this issue. We rarely are unable to offer same day appointments and if it is clinically urgent a patient will always be seen, again in comparison nationally, being able to offer a pre-bookable appointment within a few days is excellent as it is often much longer than this. We have tried to establish who you are to check to see if you have any long term conditions that you would be invited in for but have been unable to establish this so would ask you to contact the practice directly so that we can check your records and ensure nothing has been missed. For your information the NHS Healthchecks which are age related are only offered to patient every 5 years. All patient requiring regular reviews or Healthchecks are telephoned and personally invited, we only send letters if we are unable to contact the patient. We have though discovered that the recalls we inherited when taking over Southglade where not all in place or accurate so we are working through patient records to correct this. I'm sorry if you felt there was no awareness of the Alliance taking over the practice, prior to April the previous practice should have informed all patients what was happening to reassure that the practice was continuing, and since taking over we have set up a dedicated website and Facebook page and Newsletter to communicate with our patients as well as undertaking publicity about the change. Please call the practice with your details on 0115 9770224 or email at ncccg.southglademedicalpractice@nhs.net so we can investigate further.