Reply from The Sollershott Surgery
Sat, 31 Aug 2019 12:59:43 +0100

We are sorry to learn that you have experienced difficulty in making an appointment with the same GP since February 2019 and feel that this is affecting your continuity of care. The Practice has three experienced and regular GPs: one working four days per week, one working three days per week and the third working two days per week. All have been in post since September 2018. Aside from planned holidays, each GP is available every week for both face-to-face and telephone consultations with our patients. We accept that there are difficulties when trying to strike a balance between providing patients with a choice of pre-bookable, book-on-the day, urgent appointments and telephone consultation appointments. The Practice is in regular discussion with its Patient Participation Group regarding the appointment system and endeavour to take on board their suggestions wherever possible. Accordingly, we have made amendments to the system over the past year to try to accommodate patients' requirements and this is under constant review as demand for appointments increases. It is difficult to predict usage on a particular day or week. To this end, we are currently operating a system of appointment availability up to 4 weeks ahead. This is being closely monitored for effectiveness and to assess whether this results an increased rate of patients not attending for their pre-booked appointments; an issue which has been experienced by the Practice previously and creates a large number of wasted patient appointments. Increasingly, patients are offered telephone consultations by their regular GP as an alternative to a face-to-face appointment and where it is deemed clinically appropriate. If, however, you feel that this option is not suitable for you, face-to-face appointments are available for you book; albeit it is accepted that more flexibility may be required on both sides to accommodate this.