Whickham Cottage Medical Centre

Written by a patient

The receptionist was very professional gave me same day appointment, Dr very nice young man said he would book me an appointment with a nurse to do test within 2-3 days. 7 days later no appointment & with my condition worsening I rang the surgery to find out when my appointment with the nurse would be, only to be told the Dr had NOT booked me a nurses appointment at all. excuse given shortage of nurses. I feel very let down, frustrated & unwell. All that was needed from that GP was a quick phone call to say I am very sorry I am unable to get you an appointment until ??? if you feel you condition is deteriorating either go to the walk in centre or if it gets worse go to A&E. The lack of communication from that GP is just not acceptable & I do hope lessons learnt from this is :- communicate with your patients do not let them down, lives could be at risk!!

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Written by a patient

First of all, I was able to phone up the surgery and get an appointment for my chosen day quite quickly and easily. I was seen at my agreed appointment time. Due to my medical condition, the nurse failed in her valiant attempt to carry out my smear test. Through no fault of the nurse, the smear test was very painful but she was excellent and explained everything to me. She was lovely and tried to put me at ease in very difficult (and embarassing circumstances). She treated me throughout with the utmost respect and dignity. She arranged for me to use hormone cream to help with my condition and I subsequently returned to the same nurse so that she could attempt the smear test again. This time, although it was still difficult and painful, the smear test was successfully completed. It is worth mentioning that it must have been very challenging for her (as well as me) but she was absolutely fantastic and was so very reassuring. She is a credit to the NHS.

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Written by a patient

I work full time and find it impossible to book an appointment, I will ring in the morning for afternoon appointment only to be told I have to ring in afternoon by which time there are no appointments left. I can't book in 6 weeks tine as not aware of what my work commitments are going to be like. Currently, I really need to see a doctor, I rang for emergency appointment on Monday 01.02.16 and was told that no slots were left however they have doctors at Blaydon walk in center so booked me in there. This was a complete waste of time, the doctor was not part of the surgery, did not have access to any of my records, told me on everything I needed, had to be referred back to my own surgery / doctor and could not even give me my full prescriptions. No further forward, still feeling very poorly but cant impact my job anymore in respect to taking time off. Called surgery to explain what happened and how I'm no further forward therefore still need to see doctor urgently .... nothing was offered other than an appointment available sometime next week, nor was an apology given for what had happened. When I initially called for emergency appointment, they set my expectations that I was going to see a Doctor from the surgery, this was not the case at all. I left work early and it was a complete waste of time, everything I asked for had to done by own doctor so very disappointed that this impacted my job for nothing and still need to see a doctor.

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Written by a patient

Doctor Easthaugh was very good at listening then determoning the best course of action for this particular examination.

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Written by a patient

I find everyone very helpful

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