Broadway Surgery
Wellsbourne Health Centre, 179 Whitehawk Road, Brighton, East Sussex, BN2 5FL 7 reviewsReviews
My daughter called me in distress this afternoon, she has been trying to get an appointment with her GP, Dr Ballentyne, since the middle of August.
Here is a log of the calls she has made. On the 2/10 she found a missed call from the surgery and rang it back, but was not able to speak with a Doctor.
17/08
18/08
27/08
11/09 x2
21/09
23/09
02/10
On phoning today, she was told by the Receptionist that there was no possibility for an appointment until the 16th October. In spite of hearing her obvious distress, the Receptionist insisted that there was nothing available before that date.
Over this period of time, problems compound and increase, the result is anxiety and distress.
Excellent doctor but the reception is the worst I have ever had contact with. Let me put it this way... ...if they answer your phone call you can call yourself lucky. Tried to get appointment for my poorly daughter with a chickenpox and 39 degree temperature. After 45 mins!! of waiting on the phone... and listening to .... your call is in the queue and will be answered shortly... I gave up and called 111 for help.
My experience of the Broadway surgery is a very pleasant experience, Seldom kept waiting when there for an appointment, The whole practice seems to run like clockwork, I am often called to have blood taken for the Oncology department at the hospital and seldom have any wait at all, The Doctor is extremely efficient and comforting in all the varied problems I personally have encountered, The nurse is equally efficient and very pleasant. Overall this is the best surgery I have ever encountered, And that is quite a number as I have moved many times in my life *****
I’ll start by saying Tracey the main receptionist is very helpful however it all goes downhill from there.
The young receptionist lacks all empathy with little to no customer service skills.
Getting a appointment is possible however it’s a matter of constantly calling till you get through sometimes for nearly a hour in the morning.
Waiting times are reasonable. Experience with doktors are friendly however I aways feel the need to push for further refferals and I don’t always feel the doktor knows what the actual issue could be.
It is not always easy to get an appointment straightaway, you often have to wait well over a week.
Also when you do get an appointment you have to sit around ages in the waiting room to be seen.
Thank you for taking the time to provide us with feedback. Unfortunately, there is currently a huge demand for appointments (this is a national problem affecting most GP practices across the country). We do try and combat this by having a mixture of: pre-bookable, same day urgent appointments and a certain number of telephone consultations each day. The 10 same day urgent appointments are released every day but these do go quickly therefore patients need to phone at 9am or come into the surgery as these are filled on a first come first served basis. Unfortunately, each patient is only allocated 10 minutes per appointment and sometimes this just isn't enough time or the doctor may be delayed on an urgent home visit & then this may then impact on other patients. We try our best to warn patients if this is the case when they arrive. If patients have a number of health issues to discuss with the doctor we do encourage them to ask for a double appointment when booking to help the doctor keep to agreed appointment times. As a practice are always striving to do better and we will continue to keep monitoring the appointment system & responding to patient feedback.
Resources
Short link to review Broadway Surgery: http://iwgc.net/ejhol