"Cannot Book Appointment"

Dear Patient,

Many thanks for providing feedback with difficulties to request a routine appointment in March and we are sorry we have not met your expectations.

We work very hard to offer as many appointments as we can, but we, like all GP surgeries, do not have the clinical staffing to see everyone.

Last month (March) the Practice held over 16,200 consultations with over 5,300 arranged through our daily GP-led triage. Included in this were over 1,000 routine and over 2,300 face-to-face appointments. This is in addition to clinical admin work (e.g., prescriptions, test results, requests from Hospitals and other queries).

Many of the other 10,900 appointments are booked via the NHSApp (e.g., smears and blood tests), using self-booking links (for health reviews) or when follow up is needed.

With a same day system, although you may need to contact us on consecutive days before requesting a GP appointment, this is typically a sooner and safer pathway than asking patients to wait up to six weeks for an appointment.

Where possible we signpost patients to manage minor problems, as many minor ailments are easily treated at home or with advice from a local pharmacist.

To support patients and staff, Management reviews our staffing, and monitors this through the day, to ensure we allocate 'same day' appointments to those who need us most, while offering as much ‘routine’ access as we can.

To reassure you of our Total Triage, our 2023 data shows we increased access by more than 2,200 consultations, more than doubled face-to-face appointments, and increased routine access compared to the 2022 data.

We understand this does not resolve your frustrations, but we trust this addresses your concerns with our services.

Regarding difficulty contacting the Practice, telephone wait times continue to be a top priority and we share improvements and service information in our newsletters. You can sign up to our Patient Newsletter here: https://www.meonhealthpractice.co.uk/practice-information/patient-newsletters/

To continue improvements made to contact us, we introduced a new website with better digital access using ‘anima’ in February ‘24 which should reduce the need for patients to call us who can use the internet and allow our telephones to prioritise those who cannot contact us online.

Please be aware while anima will improve how to contact us, anima is not increasing our staffing and once our GP appointment book is full the online portal will also be full.

Medical requests are generally available via anima from 8am Monday to Friday.

We understand how frustrating it is when you can’t be seen for a ‘routine’ problem, and when you try to contact us at peak times, but please be patient and kind with our staff while we try and process the demand on our service.

Thank you again for taking your time to share your feedback. We believe all feedback helps us to deliver an improved service in future.

Yours sincerely,

James Leach

Patient Service Manager