"Worcestershire Out of Hours GP service"

We were staying away from home near Malvern when I developed an infection in my ear which did not respond to the usual remedies.

I went to a pharmacist on Saturday morning, who recommended I call the Worcs Out of Hours GP service. After the usual 'select the service you require' keyboard session I got through to a very helpful and friendly call handler who took my details, a description of the problem and my phone number and said a clinician would call back inside an hour.

I got a return call in about 20 minutes with an immediate offer of a GP appointment at either Worcester or Malvern Hospitals.

I opted for Malvern and got a time early in the afternoon.

The Community Hospital is very impressively new and well fitted, the charming GP called me in within about 2 minutes of the appointment time (our local GPs could learn from that! ) and I was kitted out with a prescription and directions to a couple of pharmacies within the 20 minutes allowed for free parking.

The IT systems were clearly working well throughout as I didn't have to repeat any information at any point and the GP & clinician were fully briefed on the problem. The prescription seems to be working as promised.

We were all done inside about 3 hours - very impressive.

Thanks to all concerned.