Care Opinion

Not easy to book appointments by phone nor online

Posted By Disheartened and depressed

"Not easy to book appointments by phone nor online"

About: The Lawson Practice

(as a service user),

I was told to phone the practice at 8:00 am to book an appointment. I did phone punctually - waited on the line for over ten minutes - got no response. Hung up then tried again an hour later - still no-one picked up the phone. Repeated process again one hour later - waited well over ten minutes - still no response. I got depressed and gave up trying to book an appointment. Tried using Patient Access online - it didn't have any facility for booking a telephone consultation.

I feel very disheartened and let down by the lack of response from the practice. They always seem to be under-staffed and the admin staff are not sufficient in number to respond swiftly to the numerous calls. It's poor management. I am very very disappointed.

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Responses

Response from Deborah Colvin, GP, The Lawson Practice, The Lawson Practice 2 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Deborah Colvin
GP, The Lawson Practice,
The Lawson Practice

Submitted on 07/08/2022 at 17:27
Published on Care Opinion at 21:26

I'm sorry you had such difficulty trying to contact the practice. I'm wondering if this was on the 1st August when you posted this comment?

We had a really difficult day on Monday 1st. There were a huge number of telephone calls and it was extremely busy. I'm not sure why you were unable to book a telephone call on patient access? Maybe your named GP was on leave?

You are correct that we are short on reception staff at the moment. We have had some sickness, some staff are on annual leave and so we are low. However we are planning to recruit more staff so this should help.

Apologies again for such a frustrating time. Did you know that you can use our email system (see our website for how to do this). Your email will be looked at and you will get a response within the next couple of days.

I hope you don't have such a bad experience again.

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