Portsoy Medical Practice 2017-04-18 Person 1 5 0

Since our own practice at Aberchirder amalgamated with Portsoy the service we receive is nothing less than unacceptable. Sometimes there is only one doctor covering both practices, they cant get a locum to cover for some reason either. It is besides the point that Portsoy have had a doctor leave, completely unacceptable that no replacement for him, which would only give Portsoy/Aberchirder, 3 doctors in total to cover both practices, even if they could get another permanent doctor. The service they offer now is that we have to phone for appt. the receptionists put us through to Triage, and these triage nurses listen to our symptoms and then decide if we can see a doctor (not acceptable). When we finally get given an appointment, which could be 2 weeks away, we cannot see the doctor we initially saw, practically impossible for that to happen, so we get a locum or in my own case not even a regular doctor but had to settle for a Practice Nurse. All we get in explanation is that they are a doctor short, well to my mind they are not doing enough to attract doctors as its been months now and who are suffering the patients that is who. There is a tragedy just waiting to happen, I can see it coming with us all having to be means tested via Triage before being considered important enough to see a Doctor, especially with the elderly. I have tried to join another practice as Portsoy/Aberchirder service is appalling, well there is no service really, but seems they are inundated with others trying to leave Portsoy/Aberchirder and are not taking any more patients on. It is strange how the other practices around the locality seem to have a permanent number of regular doctors. but somehow Portsoy/Aberchirder cant even manage to achieve this. If we are ill in future, we have decided just to go along to A & E, I never advocated this procedure before as they are very busy, but if this is the only way we can get attention, this is what we will do, and I would suggest that others do the same thing. ~We all know our own bodies and know when something is wrong, but if we wait for the Portsoy/Aberchirder practice to give us appointments, well we could end up in hospital anyway.