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The Orchard Surgery
2016-02-18
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Written by a patient
Written by a patient 18th February 2016
I would like to say how ridiculous the system is for emegency patients. How pathetic that in order to be seen first thing in the morning you have to queue outside in all weather's! I have never seen such lunacy. In order to be seen within a quick time frame you have to be first on the queue which therefore means you have to get there by 8am and queue for 30 minutes. In rain, snow etc. If you are ill how ridiculous to make you wait outside. Have you not heard of telephone emegency appointments? We went today as temporary residents as we are visiting family. We waited 10 minutes outside to be told by the receptionist when she got there that the one doctor they had was ill and to go home and come back later. Come back later?? My partner was in agony. He has a serious eat infection with puss coming out of his ear. They didn't have another doctor so one doctor is enough to cover all of the community? After we expressed out dissatisfaction the receptionist 'jenny' was quite abrupt and rude. She told us to go to another surgery which we did and at the cobtree surgery in Sutton valance who were very welcoming and much more organised! No queuing outside there.
17th January 2017
Response from The Orchard Surgery
Thank you for your feedback we need both positive and negative feedback to learn.. I would like to point out that open surgery runs from 8.30 - 10.30 and so long as you come within that framework of time you will be given a time to be seen. It is patient choice to queue from 8am, this is not really necessary. On this occasion, which is extremely rare, the duty GP was very sick overnight and phoned to say that he could not come in as he would a) have passed this to all the patients and staff and b) was not physically able to see patients as he was vomiting. It meant that we had to find an emergency locum GP to cover, this takes time, the locum has to be found and travel to the surgery. We offer at least 18 open appointments every morning and also bookable appointments each afternoon. We have a list size of 3000 patients and have appropriate cover. I apologise that you found this frustrating, but as I said this was a very rare situation, GPs like everyone can sadly become too unwell to work overnight. When the receptionist asked you to come back later, she meant that morning once she had a GP replacement. You could have waited in the surgery had you wished, a replacement was sourced quite swiftly. I am glad that another local practice was able to help, I am sure they too have been in a similar situation before. Apologies again, I hope you can understand the situation we were in.