The Family Practice

The Family Practice 2017-11-01 Person 2 5 0

It feels me with great disappointment to give such an awful review but I have unfortunately received terrible care by this surgery. I have been registered here all my life and in the last couple of years I have been really struggling with a ongoing issue with my water works. Firstly an appointment is like gold dust, resulting in that I have had to pay quite a lot of money and do consultations with online doctors and paying for prescriptions as it's just near impossible to be seen by my GP. I have also had to see a private GP as i was told by a receptionist at The Family Practice at 8:35am that no appointments are available with any doctor whatsoever and was told to call again the following day at 8:30am. Today at 9am I dropped off a urine sample and handed it to a receptionist (as I was told to do by a doctor and the receptionist), I then phoned the practice at 4pm to find out my results and to get a prescription of antibiotics. But instead when I phoned them they informed me that they have misplaced my urine sample and cannot find it! By this point I was livid, this was the second time I have tried to bring in a urine sample in the space of 1 month. The first time i arrived 10 minutes too late, but by this time I had already taken antibiotics to start my treatment to recover, therefore any urine samples after taking antibiotics was now void. I was told by the receptionist that I would have to wait until the next time i get an infection to do a urine test?! But this time round they then LOST my sample and again I am back to square 1 as I have already started a treatment of antibiotics. I need to know the reason why this is occurring so often, I can't just keep taking antibiotics as I am now starting to become resitant . But as they totally made a mistake they were able to offer me several different appointment times for the following day even though this morning they had said to me that there were no appointments available with any doctor whatsoever... I would just like to add that once you do finally get seen by a Doctor that they are absolutely amazing! Massive credit to Dr Gandham & Dr Richards, they are just wonderful.

The Family Practice 2017-08-17 Person 1 5 0

Even after this practice has been put into special measures and money poured in to improve it, it remains impossible to get appointments. There are only 2 doctors available most times I've tried and they have far too many patients. The toilets are filthy too.

The Family Practice 2017-05-26 Person 3 5 0

I have been with the surgery for a long time, and although the doctors have changed over time, they are all excellent caring people. But they are under extreme pressure from the volume of patients they have to see. This results in really not enough time for each patient to ask as many questions as sometimes needed. Trying to get an appointment is almost impossible and the expected time wait is about 3 weeks. On one occasion I needed to see a doctor and was told there were no appointments and to go to the "walk in centre". Instead of my usual blood pressure check with a nurse, which I have often felt to be a rather negative experience.( mainly due to the lack of friendly conversation in order to relax you), today I saw Helen Garrood at the blood pressure clinic. It was such a positive experience. I cannot say enough about this lovely lady. She gave me time, explained everything I asked her, and gave me a lot of advice and help, and my blood pressure was good, instead of being on the high side. I just hope Helen is around at the surgery for a long time, as I feel very positive after seeing her, and I know others will feel the same.

The Family Practice 2017-05-17 Person 4 5 0

Almost everything is good about this surgery. The 'middling' score above for appointments is really a general comment about the difficulty of getting NHS appointments - I'm sure they do their best in a generally difficult situation.

The Family Practice 2017-05-10 Person 5 5 0

This has been my doctors practice for 39 years and everyone has been wonderful both to me and my late husband over the years. I have a chronic condition that is monitored by Dr Richards and Dr. McKelvie and they are very caring, very thorough and reassuring. I saw Dr Richards today and he took the time to go through my health issues and put my mind at ease and resolved the problem I had. A lovely man. The practice is a busy one but they really do look after their patients and I can't thank them enough.