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Billingshurst Surgery
2022-12-23
Person
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5
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23rd December 2022
Dealing directly with the doctors and clinicians is fine, they listen and are understanding, also cooperative with moving forward handling your ‘medical’ issues. I feel they see me as a ‘person’ not a ‘client’, ‘customer’ or a number.
I know the receptionists are on the ‘frontline’’ and are under pressure but they can be very curt, short and as for asking what the problem is I feel that is between me and my doctor, especially if it’s an ongoing personal issue and I need to see my doctor who I’m registered with, not the available ‘locum’ or any other GP which would mean going through my medical history thus taking up valuable appointment time.
Suggested improvements
Make the appointment process more flexible….some people can’t always queue up at 8.00 am for an appointment and then be told there’s none left; hang on the phone trying to get through or have access online.
More access to early evening or Saturday morning appointments…
29th December 2022
Response from Billingshurst Surgery
Thank you for your feedback, it is excellent to hear how your experiences with our clinicians have been recently. I appreciate your feelings regarding being asked about your reason for needing an appointment specifically how you are being asked. We have been improving in this area but also recognize we still have a way to go. We will be focusing on this again in the new year in our next group training sessions. With respect to why you are being asked, this is at the request of the GPs, you do not need to give much information at all, it is solely to ensure they are boking you with the most appropriate clinician. There are a lot of appointments that get booked with GPs that could easily be dealt with by specialist nurses, or advanced practitioners for example, by signposting to the correct one, this means that there are more GP appointments for when they are needed. We are continuing to review the appointment process to make it as flexible as we can, this is becoming increasingly difficult as demand continues to outweigh capacity. One of the online additions we have made in recent months is eConsult, this can be used for appointment requests, or generic admin quires. This remains open during our working hours until we hit capacity on any given day. Its worth a try if you prefer to book your appointments online, you can access it through the following link (https://www.billingshurstsurgery.co.uk/appointment-system.php) or via the "ask my GP for advice" section in the NHS app. Finally, we have been discussing with our group of surgeries (Storrington, Steyning and Henfield) how we can improve weekend and evening access. We have increased the numbers of evening and weekend appointments recently, and are hoping to do so again in the new year when the clinical team is further expanded. I hope this has answered your concerns, my apologies for the length of the response, I wanted to try and address as many of your concerns as possible. If you would like to discuss anything further please feel free to contact us directly (https://www.billingshurstsurgery.co.uk/contact.php). Many thanks, Billingshurst Surgery