The Grayshott Surgery 2020-02-16 Person 2 5 0

The doctors and nurses are all absolutely lovely, caring and knowledgeable. It is such a shame that you have to get past the receptionists to get an appointment with them. The reception staff are rude and unhelpful. They make any small request seem like you are massively inconveniencing them by asking them to help with it (i.e. asking them to do their job...). I'd never, ever speak to anyone like they have spoken to me and my family – especially not in a professional capacity! I spent many years working in various customer-facing roles and this is just not how you treat your customers or your fellow human beings. Even if you think the customer/patient is wrong, you don't need to make it obvious that you think they are an absolute idiot (and in fact, I was never wrong in any of these cases, they were, but they took great pains to explain to me how stupid I was before finally realising that, actually, I was right and there was a problem). You can actually be kind to your customers and make out like you really want to help them, even if you think they are wrong. They have signs up behind the desk asking people not to be rude to them, but I have seen and overheard how they treat patients and, really, no patient goes in there to get upset and mistreat the reception staff... the receptionists just get what they give in the first place (not that I advocate being rude to someone even when they have been rude to you first, but I can understand why people get upset if they are not being listened to and not being helped). What about a little kindess and respect for your fellow human beings – especially those already under the stress of having a health problem or a family member with a health problem? Not everyone has a health condition you can see. You might actually be causing a huge amount of distress to someone with a mental health condition that they hide well. It is virtually impossible to get an appointment too. There are a limited number of appointments you can pre-book, otherwise you have to call in the morning on the day (and the phone is often not switched on yet when they say it will be). If you miss out on getting a morning appointment, you have to call back after 2pm for an afternoon one. I find this absolutely ridiculous. Why can't afternoon appointments for the same day be booked in the morning? Plus, of course, you are spoken to rudely on the phone when you ask for an appointment too, and asked if it is 'urgent' (in my understanding, you see your GP for important concerns that are not necessarily urgent, as urgent concerns often need treatment right away and that's what we have minor injury units and hospitals for. If people only ever saw GPs for very urgent concerns, a lot more people would die of preventable diseases that can be treated if caught early enough... discouraging people from booking appointments this way is potentially endangering their lives) so it just puts you off calling all together. There are a number of things I'd actually like to see the doctor about but I probably won't call for an appointment until a limb is falling off, as apparently that's when you are allowed an appointment. Repeat prescriptions are an absolute nightmare too. I had to drive back and forth from the surgery 5 times once because they kept writing it wrong, despite the pharmacist's very strict instructions on how it needed to be written. We've had drugs deleted off our repeat prescription lists for no reason, the wrong doses, an old drug dispensed, a drug we didn't order, prescriptions sent to the wrong pharmacy, letters from specialists not read and the information in them not acted upon... We never had problems like this at our old surgery and I miss it so very much (the receptionists there were lovely and it was so much easier to get an appointment). I'd change surgery but there are no others that serve my address, so my family and I are stuck. Shame we all have long-standing health concerns!