We have listened to our patients and from today, a queuing system will be in place.
When you phone the surgery, you will now get a welcoming message before being passed through to the queue.
This message will alert the caller to hang up and dial 999 if faced with a life-threatening problem, like a heart attack or stroke. These people should not wait patiently in a queue!
We have had a few problems with the phone ringing at the surgery from 7.15 am, a time when the lines should still signpost you to out-of-hours services. This is why we have included a message to do so if you receive the message outside of our opening hours.
In the message, we also have included advice about how to bypass the phone lines through the NHS App and other online services.
The system will only hold a maximum number of calls in the queue. If this number of people are in the queue already, the next person will receive an engaged tone. When you receive the message, you know you will end up in the queue. Just hang on, and we’ll get to you.
If you can’t wait, please hang up and try again later.
We hope this will make the system better for our patients, but we realise there is no such thing as a perfect system.
