FFT January 2025 Comments

Turn heating down I was there yesterday, and it was very hot.

• Unfortunately, the heating in the surgery is controlled by the hospital and can create extremes of temperature as whilst our surgery will be particularly warm, even though all the radiators are turned off, other areas of the hospital are cold.

Have more information about using eforms for appointments. Put it on website.

• Thank you for your comments we will look to see if we can add some links to videos to help with this.

“Too make it easier to get Doctor appointments”, “Go back to easier booking appointment as e consult so hard”, “Empty surgery when you go and not all doctors on how you cannot just phone up this is a lazy way should go back to old way”

• The e-consult system was introduced as the demand for appointments was completely outweighed by the appointments available. It was a fight on a morning to either get in the queue first on the telephone or at the door waiting for the surgery to open. All available appointments had been booked within 15 minutes of opening the surgery door / telephone lines. Patients with minor problems got an appointment whilst patients with serious problems had to wait until the following day and go through the process again, narrative from patients was that they were ringing for a number of days before they eventually got an appointment, but the appointment offered could be for 2 weeks’ time. Health Care Professionals cannot provide an unlimited number of appointments as this is not safe for the patient or for the clinician.
• With this new system all patients who want an appointment for a new problem will first of all be care navigated to the most appropriate clinician, which could be a Pharmacist, Physiotherapist, Podiatrist, Mental Health Practitioner etc. If it is deemed that a GP or Advanced Nurse Practitioner is the most appropriate appointment type, you will be requested to complete an e-consult. This form gives the GP who will triage your request for an appointment with as much information as possible.
• If the patient can’t complete the e-consult/ has no online access, the reception staff can complete a shorter version form for the patient. We would however always recommend that if you can complete the e-consult you do so.
• The GP will triage your request and make a clinical decision as to which type of appointment is most appropriate and how quickly this should be provided. The patient will then be contacted by either the GP at the time of triage or by reception to offer an appointment.
• Therefore, the patient who was ringing back daily will now only have to make contact with the practice on one occasion.
• n.b Appointments with the Practice Nurse / Nurse Associate are still available to book by telephone to the surgery. Follow up GP appointments are also available to book via telephone.
• There are a limited number of online bookable appointments for the nursing team, however, these are for limited problems and in our experience these are regularly incorrectly booked for problems outside of those listed. Any which are incorrectly booked will be cancelled.

Positive comment re e-consult:

• E-consultation is a much better method of arranging an appointment, in my case got me to the correct health care professional without having to have an appointment with the GP. Saving me and the GP an unnecessary appointment.