Marcham Rd Family Health Centre

Marcham Rd Family Health Centre 2023-01-03 Person 1 5 0

I have been unlucky enough to be a patient at Marcham Road Health Centre for five months, from August 2022. When I moved to the area, I asked for a referral to the nearest Gastroenterology department so that my ongoing care for Crohn's could be transferred. The GP I spoke to at Marcham Road Health Centre said that if I wanted to be transferred, I would have to do it myself by speaking to my prior hospital and asking them to do so. This is not something that patients are asked to do, ever, and nobody outside this surgery that I spoke to had ever encountered such a request. However, everyone in Marcham Road Health Centre, from receptionists to GPs to the practice manager was adamant that they could not refer me, and I only managed to convince a GP at this practice to refer me in late December 2022. I felt, and continue to feel, gaslit by this refusal. I have lived in five different regions of England and Scotland and been a member of countless GP practices, and Marcham Road Health Centre is the only one that has refused to refer me to a local Gastroenterology department. The result is that I did not receive a referral for four months, during which time I had no gastrointestinal care, and my health has deteriorated during this period. At this moment, I am booked in to see a specialist in August – a year after I moved and asked to have my care transferred. I have test results that require clinical attention, but no clinician to assist me, and I cannot access resources such as the local IBD helpline. I do not blame the hospital for the lengthy wait, as they did not receive my referral until late December. All blame falls on Marcham Road Health Centre. To compound matters, Marcham Road Health Centre and their in-house dispensary have managed to misplace each request for my repeat prescription I made during my time there. Every time I have requested my repeat prescription – something I do on a monthly basis – I have found myself forced into a position where I needed to run around Abingdon and Oxford in order to find somewhere that can fill my script on a short notice. The most recent time, I requested a repeat on 14 Dec 2022 via EMIS, which Marcham Road Health Centre's dispensary claimed not to have received. I then physically handed Marcham Road Health Centre's dispensary a copy of my repeat: when I came in to pick up the medication from the dispensary, they claimed once again to have not received the request, which is an unlikely claim given that I handed it in to them in person. I finally managed to get the last item on my repeat from a Boots in central Oxford on 2 Jan 2023, after having run out entirely. Marcham Road Health Centre is by far the worst GP practice I've had the misfortune to register with, and I consider that they have been actively dangerous to me thus far. I am planning to leave before they can cause me any more damage.

There are two exceedingly simple things that I needed from Marcham Road Health Centre: a referral and prescriptions. The practice has delivered neither of these. I do not see a way to ameliorate this without replacing all the clinical, administrative, and dispensary staff who have failed me. It is therefore unfit for purpose as far as I am concerned, and I am exercising my right to leave.

Marcham Rd Family Health Centre 2022-11-07 Person 1 5 0

I truly cannot express how much I loathe this practice--solely based on the reception, pharmacy and admin teams. I've been with the practice for 15 years and while the doctors are generally good (and the midwives based there are amazing!), the admin team, including the manager, seem hellbent on making patient lives as difficult as possible. I've had repeated problems with prescription requests for required daily medication that has reached comic proportions now. Current example: At four months pregnant, the practice could not supply a required daily medication that I take due to having had cancer as a young person. Rather than let me know that they had supply issues, I had to come into the practice a week later to discover this... and all other local pharmacies were having the same supply issues. It happened to coincide with the Queen's funeral weekend and in the end, I was without my medication for six days and feeling wretched and worried as a result. 111 doctors insisted that I ask for a three-month prescription of this medication in the future given that I have now had supply issues with this medication four times since Brexit. Marcham Road refuses to prescribe more than one month at a time despite this ongoing supply debacle and request of 111 doctors because it is 'their policy'. Funny enough, without me saying anything, a trainee midwife in Wantage asked where my GP practice was based and when I said 'Marcham Road', she literally shuttered and said, 'Ooh. They really aren't the nicest there, are they'? I laughed and told her that she made me feel so much better because it meant that it wasn't just me (which is obvious based on all the other reviews here anyway). Adding insult to injury, making an appointment here is often difficult and I just cannot understand how this practice even remotely functions. As my regular GP has retired, despite being in the middle of a pregnancy, I am now trying to switch practices as I can no longer stand the negativity and frequent problem-making attitude of the administration, pharmacy and reception teams (with the exception of Anita, who is truly lovely). There is just a constant dark cloud over this practice and I dread every time I have to interact with them. Shame--deep shame--on this practice. Truly.

Sort out the toxic nature of reception/admin.

Marcham Rd Family Health Centre 2022-06-30 Person 5 5 0

Christine Eccles is a very helpful receptionist, easy to talk too and a very pleasant person. She went above and beyond to get me an appointment when I thought it wasn't necessary. As it turned out I had had a TIA late March and since then had several scans and am now on tablets for this. Scans revealed that my Cancer might have came back. Luckily it hasn't, but if it wasn't for Christine encouraging me to see the doctor I would not have had the tablets that I needed for the TIA. Also I was diagnosed with heart disease and now on tablets for that. All because of Christine, so am very lucky and grateful to her. Basically she saved my life :-) Jackie

nothing

Marcham Rd Family Health Centre 2022-05-25 Person 0 5 0

My feet has still not been seen by any doctor after 5 months. I received letter from hospital saying it’s not an emergency and they do not have time to see me. My feet is hurting daily and I wake up few times in night but it’s not an emergency for the doctors.

Give the appointment and treat people before the situation becomes too bad

Marcham Rd Family Health Centre 2021-12-07 Person 4 5 0

Have been with Marcham Road HC for over 12 years now. I have always been successful with obtaining a same day appointment or call back. The booking system is so much better now you can speak to a Dr and they will only get you in if needed. Receptionists over the years have massively improved, it must be a hard job having to deal with frustrating calls all day long. There are one or two who are left that can come across very rude, however on the whole it is vastly improved. The on site pharmacy is also useful too.

All receptionists to be consistent in their customer service.