I REFER to the concerns expressed by Paul Carter regarding the recently adopted practice of making appointments at Stockton Heath Medical Centre.

In addition to Paul’s comments regarding ‘appointments can only be made by telephone’ and ‘on the day’, this system is further burdened by the additional layer ‘telephone consultation process’ in place.

This means that once patients have finally managed to get their call answered they have to wait for a return telephone call by a clinician (which can take several hours) before an appointment time is given.

To relate my recent experience, it took three days of repeated attempts of phoning to finally get through to reception, having resorted by this time in requesting an emergency appointment.

It was then more than two hours before I received a call back from a GP for an appointment later that day, when I was able to finally obtain the antibiotics that I needed to treat an infection.

The delay in receiving timely treatment resulted in the infection worsening and caused prolonged and unnecessary discomfort.

The medical centre website states that the new system has been ‘well accepted by the majority of the practice population’.

I question how this conclusion has been reached.

The practice admits that the new process has put additional work pressures on to GPs.

However instead of accepting that it does not work they have responded by further reducing the number of patient consultations, making it even harder to get access to a GP or other practitioner.

In their ethos of ‘Dr First’, surely the practice should be creating a leaner system, not creating unnecessary layers of time wasting inefficiency.

BARBARA HARDING
Stockton Heath