Tickhill Surgery

Tickhill Surgery 2021-09-08 Person 0 5 0

(I am writing on behalf of my father who is a patient at your surgery: the patient details below therefore relate to him.) My complaint : The communication with and from this surgery is the worst I’ve ever come across. It is almost impossible to get through to make an appointment. There is no way of knowing where you are in any kind of queue if you ring up so you just have to keep ringing and this can go on for an hour or more before you get through. The receptionist is rude and unhelpful. We as a family only discovered the Tickhill online facility by chance. We were never told about it - and this would have been so incredibly helpful at a very stressful time. The specific trigger for this complaint was the behaviour of the receptionist when, as instructed by the doctor, I took in a urine sample for my father. Context The doctors and practice nurses know my parents and have had conversations with both my sister and myself about them. My mother has been my father's carer for years: she is 95 he is 97. My mother recently broke her leg badly. She has now been in hospital for a month and my father's confusion has deteriorated greatly even though my sister, my brother and myself have tried our hardest to ensure his safety. All three of us live away (my sister near Preston, my brother in York and myself in Swansea) and been taking turns to stay with him for this past month but we all have commitments. We have organised carers to come in four times a day to get him up and give him food and put him to bed, and he wears a SMART pendent and has an electronic sensor in the bed. However he does not understand how they work and keeps setting the alarm off. When this happens my father cannot hear the responders. It has also become evident that my mother cannot return to care for him she is herself too fragile. The situation is there for one of safeguarding leading to possible crisis - which was how the Tickhill Road hospital described it to us. We are trying to get a mental capacity assessment for my father. We also wanted to discount the possible influence of a UTI which is why I had brought a urine sample in. I asked the receptionist how we would get the results. She said they would phone my father, I explained that my father is very confused and extremely deaf and cannot hear the phone. She then said she would text the result to him. I explained he did not have a smart phone and would not understand. She then said that he could write a note explaining the situation and giving myself, my sister and brother permission to deal with his case. I said my father would not be capable of this as he didn’t understand what was happening ( I gave two examples: I had been struggling with him thinking it was time to get up at three in the morning the previous night, and that he had shouted at me for offering him a short-sleeved shirt in the middle of winter the previous day). I asked if they could inform my mother. She said yes that they would phone or text her. I said that my mother was in hospital and did not have a phone … but she did have email. I was told that she couldn’t receive any messages by email. I asked what happened in the case of registered deaf people. She said the deaf person would have to get someone to sit with them to explain. But if these disabled people live alone and, especially, if like my father, they are housebound and cannot use a phone, how exactly can they manage this when they don’t know when the practice will ring? I know that in Wales the NHS has to ensure equality of access to care rather than expect the patient to sort out their problems themselves. I know the system is slightly different in England but I am sure that here there must be similarities. I then said that the practice nurses (Beth and Heather) had been discussing my father's case with my sister so they must have permission on file - and could the receptionist check to say whether my sister's details were there. I gave my sister's name and started to say her address. The receptionist cut me off to say she was not allowed to say. When I asked if I could speak to Beth - with whom my sister had been discussing my father just half an hour beforehand – she said that Beth would tell me nothing different to what she had said. By this time I was very close to tears. I said all we wanted to do is find out whether our father had a UTI and to arrange a mental capacity assessment. She was utterly dismissive and said she had told me. She had of course NOT told me. I am aware of data protection law but blocking the release of important medical results is not how it works and here she was undermining the surgery’s duty of care. For example the receptionist had my fathers case in front of her - if I had given all my siste's details she could have said 'I recognise these details' and i would have known what to do. This is not a data protection issue. If we cannot access the results of the test - and they are positive, then he will not receive treatment making his confusion a great deal worse. When I got back to my parents' house I looked up the surgery as I wanted to register a complaint. The receptionist had said that the only way of contacting the surgery was by ringing up on the off chance from eight in the morning. I had done that in order to talk to the doctor in the first place about the UTI and it had taken nearly 2 hours to get through and by then all appointments were booked. The doctor did ring me because I said that Tickhill Road Hospital had told us all that this was a safeguarding issue that could easily slip into crisis. This is when I discovered the online facility. I was completely astonished that this had never been mentioned previously The receptionist should of course have mentioned the online reporting facility that Tickhill surgery employs, One which allows people to enquire on behalf of family and friends . By the time I had discovered this and tried to fill it out I exceeded the surgery hours so could not submit it. but my sister did this yesterday without difficulty. I came home yesterday and today my father has insisted that two big men he did not know had entered the house, and that one of the carers had not given him food.Neither of these was true. One of the other carers discovered the kitchen door open with the keys on the kitchen counter. It is essential that we get the results of the urine sample and are able to organise a mental capacity assessment. We are so so worried about him. I still cannot believe how obstructive and downright rude the receptionist was when presented with quite a deal of information about what was happening to a highly vulnerable man. And the fact that she did not even indicate there was any other way of contacting the surgery.

1. Train your receptionist better - especially in data protection. And in an attempt to understand the particular problems facing patience and the family and friends. The receptionists in my own surgery are efficient, helpful and compassionate. 2. Advertise the use of the online reporting facility. If you are working this is essential. Luckily I am on a summer break. However when I am in work I leave the house at 6:30 am and arrive at my place of work at 9 am.For much of that journey there is no signal. It is impossible for me to spend two hours from 8 am ringing and re-ringing to try to get a message to doctors. My sister spent nearly 2 hours before getting through and finding, as I did, the appointments were gone. The receptionist merely said in response to this you will have to try tomorrow. She never mentioned that the whole situation could have been more readily dealt with by the online facility. 3. Signpost people to further information that may be of use.

Tickhill Surgery 2019-11-28 Person 2 5 0

I normally have a good experience from seeing g. P at this practice but on this occasion the g. P - whom I had not seen before, but she is a regular doctor at this practice, was at the beginning of the appointment very curt and abrasive, I was experiencing a fair degree of pain at the time and did not appreciate the challenging and somewhat aggressive nature of the g. P. The g. P eventually seemed to have a change of attitude and made a referral to the relevant service for me. When my physio and this particular injury has recovered I will certainly be changing gps

Tickhill Surgery 2019-09-25 Person 1 5 0

Unable to get appointments within a 2 week period. Ear syringe wasn’t available due to broken equipment . 3 months later, it still isn’t fixed. Unable to have an appointment at the sister surgery as they are full for next 3 weeks and receptionist unable to access appointments after this. Was told to google to find out how to treat my blocked ears.

Tickhill Surgery 2019-07-17 Person 5 5 0

I phoned the practice on Monday suffering from vertigo. The receptionist was really helpful, messaging one of the new GPs to see if he could do the Epley manoeuvre as Dr Pande was fully booked. The GP got back to her straight away and she booked me the next available appointment with him. I saw Dr Ozcelik today and he could not have been kinder, showing me a video of the procedure first before carrying it out. I am very grateful.

Tickhill Surgery 2018-10-23 Person 2 5 0

Appointment system is awful. Can't get an appt on phone for Dr only nurse practooner if lucky. Had to stand in cold for half hour to book an appt for that day in person l. Got an appt but was 2nd in queue but still half way through the day. Luckily I was off but I work fulltime and any other time I dint have the time to keep ringing up and you cant go in and ask for an appt for dr for a different day. It says there's high demand at the moment but I don't go to the surgery on a regular basis and I've seen no difference. I was annoyed at what I witnessed at harworth surgery the partnership surgery with tickhill, askijng patients where they would like to harworth or tickhill? Surely this should be the surgery where you live first until those appts are taken before handing out appts at another surgery. No wonder you can't get appts. And what about those that can't drive have no one to take them or walk well?!