"Garden clinic"

Hello,

Thank you for your posting and please accept my apologies for the delay in responding. I have been in touch with our service manager at the Garden Clinic. We are sorry that you had a poor experience when accessing this service.The phone line is staffed for 28.5 hours a week. We answer about 100 calls a day, 500 calls a week; the equivalent to 3.42 minutes per patient.

We are aware that we cannot always answer all of the calls that come through to the service. Most of our service runs on a walk-in and wait basis and patients do not need to call before accessing this service. The website www.safesexberkshire.nhs.uk details the opening times of clinics. We hope more and more patients will obtain information from the website and do not feel they have to ring the clinic for service information alone.Our goal is to increase access via the telephone and we have recently recruited two additional members of reception/admin staff who will come in to post in October.

I hope that this gives perspective and answers your concerns regarding your experience of accessing our service by telephone. We appreciate all feedback relating to our service as it helps us to make improvements moving forward. If you wish to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact me. Alternatively, you can contact your local Healthwatch organisation for assistance. Contact details can be found on our website www.berkshirehealthcare.nhs.uk

Yours Sincerely,

Trevor Lyalle

Patient Advice & Liaison Service

Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Tel: 0118 9605027 e mail: bht@berkshire.nhs.uk