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The Firs 2016-07-19 Person 2 5 0

I have been registered at this surgery for over 10 years and the appointments situation and administration are getting worse and worse. I've found the reception staff to he helpful and responsive to complaints but they are clearly dealing with an impossible situation. It is impossible to book ahead, even with the online booking facility there are never any appointments bookable. The only option is to try to get an emergency appointment, which for me means taking a day off work just to attempt to get through on the phone because I work over an hour away from the surgery. It normally takes me around 30 attempts to get into the phone queue, and if I make it my call will often get cut off and I'll have to start again. Often by the time I get to speak to a receptionist all the appointments have gone. This is baffling because it's not a busy surgery - if you ever get an appointment you'll find the waiting room empty. The admin problems have directly affected my care. So far this year I have twice been referred to hospital and twice the surgery has messed this up. For the first instance faxes with my referral and test results got lost between the hospital and GP several times, causing a month delay in my surgery. The only reason it happened at all was because I constantly chased to check that faxes had been received and were being actioned. With the second referral I was referred to a completely different hospital to the one I requested and not given the paperwork I should have been.