Didcot Health Centre 2024-03-16 Person 0 5 0

This review is on behalf of my mother, who is nearly 86, hard of hearing, visually impaired and has no means of personal transport. I write on her behalf because she is not IT-literate. Furthermore, there appears to be no other means by which a close relative (i.e. Me) can speak with Didcot Health Centre staff to discuss concerns. A bus on which my mother was travelling was involved in an accident on Tuesday March 12th 2024. Immediately after the accident my mother called me to say that her lower back felt bruised. Later that day she describes what she felt as two of her vertebrae "clicking back in line". This is extremely worrying because my mother suffered serious sciatic pain about 18 months ago, which significantly impacted her mobility for 4-6 months. This sciatic issue also diminished my mother's confidence and well-being because, despite her age, my mother tries to keep herself active and generally places little burden on a Health Service that she has paid for for most of her life. Therefore, given her prior sciatic condition, I'd suggest that it is extremely important for my mother to to have her back examined. Therefore, as soon as I heard about the accident, I told my mother to arrange an appointment to see her doctor ASAP. She visited the surgery the same day and was turned away by the receptionist who said there were no appointments available. My mother again visited Reception the following day and met the same response and was not given any guidance as to how she could make an appointment. I suspect that if my mother had been given guidance, it would have been to join the queue of desperate phone callers trying to get through at 08:00 each morning. However, as noted above, my mother is hard of hearing and the phone is not an optimal way for her to communicate. Therefore, can someone please tell me how my mother can get an appointment by a means other than phone or website? It strikes me that if there is an 'equitable access' policy in play at Didcot Health Centre, then your receptionists may be unaware of it, and/or it is seriously flawed. To say I'm angry is an understatement. Other answers/information provided in this review pertain to my mother, not myself.

Implement an appointment system that provides equitable access. An 85 year-old needed an appointment and you failed to arrange one for her.