Capelfield Surgery

Thank you for taking the time to feedback. We are in complete agreement with your concerns and can only apologise. Currently our practice nurse is on sick leave due to a back injury sustained when trying to prevent a patient slipping to the floor further to fainting after a blood test. We had covered her absence with a stand in (locum) nurse. Without any warning, the locum nurse did not arrive for work on the day you describe. We were in contact with her agency to try and understand what had happened as her booking had been confirmed. We were working hard with all agencies to try and facilitate a replacement but unfortunately this was out of our control and we were unable to replace a nurse with no notice. We can only apologise but did not cancel your appointment in advance to try and provide a solution which evidently we were unable to. Ideally we would have liked to be able to accommodate you at your prebooked appointment time, but despite our best efforts this was not possible. We are working hard to try and find a resolution and will be contacting all patients that have had their appointments cancelled once we can offer availability- unfortunately due to lack of available nurses we are not yet able to advise when this will be. You are welcome to book an appointment with a doctor for a smear test. Equally you can attend a local family planning clinic. We would like to try and reassure you that we are taking this very seriously and our patients' health and care is our priority- we hope that you will understand the difficult situation we are faced with and hope to be able to find a safe and clinically robust solution as soon as possible.

Thank you for your feedback. We understand the frustrations that an appointment system holds and the basic platform for comments as you point out. We encourage our patients to build relationships with at least two clinicians to ensure continuity of care in the case of absence of our team members- as you mention Dr Patel has been on long term sick leave but we are pleased that she has now returned to work in a reduced capacity. We offer a variety of ways to contact doctors here at the practice- on the day, in advance, Saturday mornings, urgent overflow clinic twice a day and telephone consultations. Further information can be found at: http://www.capelfieldsurgery.co.uk/making-appointments.aspx We would encourage telephone contacts in the first instance to facilitate initial communication with our doctors should it be a struggle for you to book an appointment that works for you around your caring role rather than if desperate. We understand the difficulties and pressure that carers face and try hard to ensure access in multiple ways to improve their care.