Billingshurst Surgery 2018-07-30 Person 4 5 0

I have a long-term major health problem that has required the intense involvement of the surgery over 15 years. Dr Ravenscroft has been 5-stars wonderful throughout, phoning me out of hours as required to make sure medical issues have been satisfactorily resolved. She is compassionate and also highly competent at seeing that I received the required support of the NHS. We must recognise that the surgery is under incredible pressure not of their own making. in particular, the fact that the NHS and local council turned down the surgery's request to expand facilities which would have avoided this horrible problem of not being able to get appointments. This is NOT the GP's responsibility -- the fault lies with the government. Even though the government knew of all the new building development going on in the village, they refused to make advance provision for an expansion of services. It is only after the fact when we have all suffered, that they are at last responding. The appointment system has been a shambles and the receptionist staff have also lost their good telephone manner in the process. I am worried that our lovely, warm surgery is going to become an unsupportive environment if it continues to grow at the present rate. My particular concern is that as the village population expands, it is becoming very difficult to maintain a consistent ability to see a small circle of GPs -- each appointment is likely with a different GP. This affects the quality of care and also WASTES GP TIME having to go over the same details. Please, can you create sub-groups of GPs, so that we can always see the same 5-6 GPs and not the dozen or so that seem to be the way of the future.