Great Bentley Surgery

Thanks for your feedback. You are partially correct about the changes that have occurred over the last 8 years. Funding for GP Surgeries has been cut back significantly in real terms by the government whilst at the same time demand for GP services has increased about 10% per year. Clearly when demand outstrips supply there is a problem. We try our very best to adapt to maintain the best service we possibly can under these conditions, but we can only do so much I'm afraid. We've introduced a triage system to ensure that medically urgent requests will always get a same day appointment and this has been very successful. It's routine appointments that are affected the most and whilst we acknowledge that it's now normal to have to wait 10 days to 2 weeks for a routine appointment, this seems to be very good when compared to many practices in the Tendring area. Of course if we have unexpected absences of clinical staff, this can have a very detrimental effect and unfortunately there is no spare funding to be able to employ expensive locum GPs to cover. This has affected us twice this year and does take a while to recover from unfortunately. Regarding blood tests, We are targeted to be able to offer an appointment within 5 working days and we have never not achieved this. I presume that the reason you had to wait 3 weeks was because we could not offer an appointment that fitted within your tight working schedule? If that is the case, you can use a walk in service in Clacton-on-sea at a location called Ricketts Lodge based at Clacton hospital in Tower Road. As for you comments about our receptionists, we instruct them to ask questions about reasons for appointments as often this can help them find the most appropriate appointment without waiting as long. They have been trained to do this and it is an important part of their job which helps the surgery deal with the demands placed upon it. However, if a patient prefers not to share information, they are told to accept this and continue dealing with a patient's request in accordance with practice procedures. If you ever feel that a receptionist has been rude, please contact Richard Miller the practice manager to explain what happened and it will be investigated.