Dorking Medical Practice at New House Surgery

Thank you for your comments. We do in fact advertise online booking in our waiting rooms via posters and leaflets, plus on our website. Also, new patients are always asked if they would like a password for online booking. If you have any suggestions as to what else we could do to publicise this, please do let us know. We used to have Saturday morning surgery but found it was not well used so now open two evenings a week (until 8.30pm on Tues & Wed) and find that these surgeries are well attended. Kind regards, Louise Laithwaite, Practice Manager

Privacy is a difficult issue at Hillside Surgery because of the limited space but you are right to bring this to our attention – we do need to be careful what is discussed in the Dispensary as it is so close to the waiting room. However, having discussed this with the staff, it appears that they were in fact discussing the ailments of their families, not our patients. They also discussed prescriptions because one Dispenser is training, so her colleague was correctly cross-questioning her about the possible diagnosis for someone on a particular drug. All Medical Receptionists, and particularly Dispensers, need to have an understanding of medication and medical terminology, even though they are not clinically trained. Re the comment about a patient being “demented”, what actually happened was that a patient cut themselves off when speaking to a Dispenser, so she remarked to her colleague not to worry as he had dementia so she would call him back. Please be assured that our Dispensers and Medical Receptionists have the utmost respect for our patients and their privacy. Kind regards, Louise Laithwaite, Practice Manager