The Elizabeth Courtauld Surgery

The Elizabeth Courtauld Surgery Feedback

1. cannot see doctor of own choice

   just recently patients have been told you cannot see a doctor of your choice and when you ring for appt you must tell receptionist why you need to see a doctor. every patient has the right to see the doctor of their choice! plus, when you ring at 8.30am to book appt you are not always lucky to get an appt. I am far from happy with this service.

   • Richard Hartwell replied on 1 March 18

     As a surgery we are trying very hard to offer as many appointments to our patients as possible. To do this our GP partners agreed a new way of working where we try to navigate each patient to the most appropriate clinician to see them each time they visit. As you will have heard from Dr Salmon’s introductory message this does require each patient to tell us why they require an appointment so we can place them accordingly. We would not argue that every patient has the right to request to see a particular person but as we a surgery need to make sure that who you see is also the most relevant person. If you are seeing a GP and you require a follow up appointment they will now book this for you to avoid the necessity of revisiting our reception desk.
     Due to level of demand for our service we are extremely busy and although we do try to accommodate everyone this is not always possible. Following patient feedback we have recently amended our clinic rotas to help those patients that which to pre-book appointments with both our GP and nurses. I hope that this may be of some assistance to you.

2. Appointment system ridiculous

   I have submitted this via Healthwatch Suffolk at the Suffolk show-
   When you manage to get an appointment they are up to 30 minutes behind.
   When I phoned at 8am they told me all the appointments had gone, but they booked me a telephone appointment. The GP called me 2 days later and she booked me in a week after that. I know the system is under pressure but this is rather ridiculous. However, with my children I can get them in on the day, but this is usually to see a nurse and if they need a GP they then come into the appointment too. When you get to see the GP/nurse it all works well.

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3. Doctor good but impossible to get appointment

   I visited a GP after a three week wait and tried to make an appointment at the Asthma Clinic to be told that there were none at all. I went home and tried to book an on-line appointment with a doctor to sort out my asthma but there were no appointments available.

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4. Impossible to get an appointment

   I cannot get an appointment with my doctor unless i ring at 0830 in the morning. If there are no appointments the process continues.
   How can I take time off work for an appointment that I cannot book in advance.
   This is a totally unhelpful system that leads to resentment of the surgery before I even visit.

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