Happy New Year to all our Patients and their loved ones. We hope 2024 will bring you everyone you could hope for.
It is time to have our weekly look at the comments left on the Patient Satisfaction Survey and the Friends and Family Test. We suspect this week we’ll find more negative comments than usual after the most recent telephone failure.
Although the telephone failure was not something caused by the practice and at least 9 other sites were experiencing problems in Barnsley, we find it unacceptable we were left without a working phone for 24 hours! We are looking into different phone systems which we hope will be more reliable and more user-friendly to both our patients and the practice. This can’t continue.
Time to look at the comments now:
I go for regular INR tests & the Nurses are very efficient & friendly, especially Amanda.
The nurse at cudworth was lovely.
I know things are very difficult in N.H.S but would appreciate being able to contact and see a doctor without so much stress
We don’t know what this patient finds stressful about contacting the surgery about seeing a doctor. We assume they wish to book an appointment without needing to inform us why. If this is what the patient means by the comment, we are sorry, but this is not going to change. We aim to provide the patient with the help most appropriate for their problem and can only do that by asking them for details.
very pleased with a seamless appointment so thanks to everyone,I am grateful.
You do well with staff you have. Thanks
The Dr I saw didn’t even make eye contact with me felt like a waste of time was not been listened to wanted to discuss menopause and a blood test as suggested by the nurse the week before Dr wouldn’t do the hormone blood test but is doing other tests for thyroid n anemia. Total waste of time I came out of the appt not satisfied with the outcome
We are sorry this patient didn’t have a good experience. It appears the doctor decided to investigate other possible reasons for this patient’s symptoms and we hope that the eventual outcome will be to the patient’s satisfaction.
A much better service Thankyou
I think everything is ok as it is
I was highly happy with the high standard of service I got when I attended the surgery
I have been suffering from this bug that’s going around after waiting for over forty five minutes I got speak to a human being who said I would be triaged prior to seeing a practitioner. An hour went past and I received a text from the out of hours provider who said I could phone a number and get an appointment, the number became live at the scheduled time and then immediately the access to that number was not available. Obviously some sort of scam. This surgery is well known for it’s bungling incompetence, it is the worse surgery for health care I have ever been to and I have spent most of the holiday choking on my own snot. The surgery has not offered me any support of any kind, I have not been able to sleep due to breathing difficulties and the surgery does give a damn, they are totally disgraceful
The patient above is not happy with our services at all. We also have received an official complaint and will respond to the patient directly. We believe there are a few things that are misunderstood or incorrect in the above. Our assessment of need system (which the patient referred to as triage), is done by a clinician at the surgery. The patient leaves details about the issue they would like help with and the receptionist records this in the patient’s notes. This request is then passed on to the clinician performing this assessment based on these details.
The outcome of the assessment (in this case advice to contact i-Heart as no appointments were available), is sent by text or via phone call to the patient. The phone number in the text will have been the number for i-Heart. Unfortunately, there is a high volume of calls they deal with too and the lines will sometimes cut off if too many people phone at the same time. This is not a scam, as the patient alleges, it is the limitations of the phone system for i-Heart.
Patients have a right to complain about our services if they feel this is appropriate. However, if a patient believes they can receive better care elsewhere nothing is stopping them from registering with a different practice that they feel can provide a better service. We are not keeping them hostage.
Even though the above comment shows us in a bad light, we still feel our patients have a right to also see the comments that aren’t positive. We will respond to the official complaint lodged by the patient after we have investigated it.
Dr matters did not check my throat after hearing my voice which was completely gone and I told him that it hurt all he said was rest and come back if it doesn’t get better no antibiotics or anything to help
We don’t know if this patient saw the doctor or only spoke to him. Despite what a lot of patients think, antibiotics are not the cure-all for everything. Antibiotics only help with bacterial infections and should not be prescribed unnecessarily. If a sore throat is of a short duration, it generally is not a bacterial infection and will usually not benefit from antibiotics. It is advised to use normal over-the-counter medications if needed for the first few days and review the symptoms if they are not improving after a few days.
And here are the responses to our Friends and Family Test:
How likely are you to recommend our GP practice to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?
Neither likely nor unlikely
Can you tell us why you gave that response?
It takes anything upto an hour to get an answer and then there’s no appointments left
Do you think the practice has improved in the last 12 months?
No not really
What are we doing particularly well?
Nothing
What do you feel we can improve on and how?
Everything.
Could have 2 receptionists on for a short while to reduce the queue.
Another unhappy patient. The phone lines are the main problem here it appears. We do have 2 receptionists on the phones every day, one in Grimethorpe and 1 in Cudworth. Even if the queue is cleared sooner, we still have the same number of appointments to work with. This means the appointments would simply be gone sooner than they are already.
We are however looking into a more advanced phone system that might help us with keeping the waiting times down and provide patients and the practice with a better experience.
How likely are you to recommend our GP practice to friends and family if they needed similar care or treatment?
Extremely likely
Can you tell us why you gave that response?
Was really worried about mum and spoke to the receptionist about my concerns they managed to get me an appointment to see both nurse and female doctor for mum for the following day after I finished work! We have been made an appointment for further investigations next week at hospital!
Do you think the practice has improved in the last 12 months?
Yes very much so!
What are we doing particularly well?
Listening, acting on and communication with us as a family!
What do you feel we can improve on and how?
Nothing! Both my mum and dad are house bound, I feel I have 100% support from all, doctors, nurses and receptionists!!! Thankyou
The complaints about the failing phones we expected were not present. Perhaps our attempts to keep our patients updated were successful and they felt supported by the practice during the difficult time we had with it. We have had enough of the constant failings of the phone system and are looking at a different system. This was previously not possible as the contract is not held by the practice but by the ICB. However, this is being passed on to practices from April, which allows us to choose a provider and system we feel will better suit our patients and the practice.
We ended the comments on a high and are very pleased the patient feels supported by us.
Not everyone is happy with our services, but the majority of our patients seem to be. We take all your comments seriously and use them to improve our services further. Thank you for taking the time to fill in our Patient Satisfaction Survey. It helps us to do exactly that.
