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Southborough Lane Surgery
2016-09-21
Person
3
5
0
Written by a patient
Written by a patient 21st September 2016
Receptionists Valerie and Kathy are OUTSTANDING. The doctors and nurses that have treated me were all good and appointments generally run to time with minimum waiting time.
One issue that I feel could be improved significantly is the way in which future appointment slots are released to the bookings system. There is no pattern to this so reception staff are unable to inform patients when particular dates/weeks will become available. This means several calls to make any non-urgent appointment. It is extremely frustrating to be asked by midwives and doctors to make several appointments (in my case six different ante-natal appointments) and have to make them all individually with numerous calls over several months to the already busy reception. This one policy wastes considerable patient & staff time.
I think it might be resolved simply, if appointment slots up to two calendar months ahead, were made available daily by the reception team or automatically, rather than by admin staff on the current ad hoc basis.
Other than this frustration, I am extremely pleased with the level of service and care that I receive at the Surgery.
26th September 2016
Response from Southborough Lane Surgery
Many thanks for your feedback and I understand your frustration at not being able to book an appointment a long time in advance. If I can assume you are attending the ante-natal clinic with the midwives, then these clinics are put on the system 6 weeks in advance as directed by the midwives themselves. This is not in our jurisdiction as the midwives run clinics independently of the surgery. The surgery does offer GP and nurse appointments up to 4 weeks in advance. The reason we don't allow booking any further ahead is that we have encountered problems in the past with patients not attending appointments that have been booked for a long time and this has a knock on effect for the other patients trying to book appointments within a shorter time frame. Also the clinicians have to be allowed the opportunity to book time away from the surgery and once the clinics are onscreen, they cannot do this. I am very pleased to hear that you are pleased with the level of service we provide and I hope I have helped answer your queries. Response left by Sally Gaites/Senior Practice Administrator