"Very positive experience"

In the past three months, I had frankly excellent care on two separate occasions, in particular from the receptionists and nurses.

In the first instance, the receptionist made sure I was placed on an emergency call list to speak to a doctor to get a referral to the early pregnancy unit. The initial online booking system had given me an appointment in four weeks' time. She was empathetic and kind, and without her we wouldn't have been able to see our baby's heart beat before I miscarried six weeks later. I genuinely can't thank this woman enough, although I never did get her name.

In the second instance, the receptionist made sure we were seen by a nurse within ten minutes of walking in. My six-year-old had managed to stab his arm on a bit of wire sticking out of a fence. The nurse in turn ensured we left with a tetanus booster. All three people who saw my son spoke to him directly, made him feel comfortable in the face of an injection and ensured he knew exactly what was happening. And they made me feel like I had a modicum of control and a lot more knowledge than I felt when we walked in.

We've been with the practice for about 4 years now and virtually every interaction I've had with the nurses have been fantastic, the doctors have been consistently great, but in the last few months, the receptionists have been stellar.

(For total transparency, I should add that I walked in in both cases, and that I would happily never use the online booking system, which I often find unbelievably cumbersome.)