Over two-thirds of patients based in Southport and Ainsdale have reported difficulty in contacting their GP surgery.
OTS News recently surveyed 476 patients based in Southport and Ainsdale over their recent experiences attempting to contact their GP surgery, while also asking for an overall rating of satisfaction.
According to the most recent data published by NHS Digital, face-to-face appointments conducted by GP surgeries in the Southport & Formby CCG collapsed between January and April 2020. Up to December 2019, GPs in Southport & Formby were regularly servicing 12,000 to 14,000 patients a month for appointments on the same day as booking. Following a drop over a period of months, numbers stabilised in June 2020, from which GPs in the area now regularly serve 6-7,000 a month patients on a “same-day” basis.
The survey also revealed:
– Across all practices, 35% of patients responded they could not get a face to face appointment when they tried to get one within the last 6 months
– Across all practices, 42% of patients attempted to call 5 times or more before being able to speak to a member of staff within the last 6 months
– Across all practices, 17% of patients waited on hold for over forty-five minutes before being able to speak to a member of staff within the last 6 months
Patients were also asked to give an overall satisfaction rating for their GP Surgery:
Ainsdale Medical Centre, Station Road | 41 responses | 4.93 rating
Ainsdale Village Surgery, Leamington Road | 10 responses | 7.40 rating
Christiana Hartley Medical Practice, Curzon Road | 25 responses | 6.60 rating
Churchtown Medical Centre, Cambridge Road | 149 responses | 3.30 rating
Cumberland House, Scarisbrick New Road | 42 responses | 5.64 rating
Kew Surgery, Town Lane | 14 responses | 5.64 rating
Lincoln House, Lincoln Road | 5 responses | 7.20 rating
Norwood Surgery, Norwood Avenue | 39 responses | 6.87 rating
St Mark’s Medical Centre, Derby Road | 71 responses | 3.02 rating
The Corner Surgery, Fylde Road | 21 responses | 6.86 rating
The Family Surgery, Liverpool Road | 4 responses | 7.75 rating
The Grange Surgery, York Road | 37 responses | 7.22 rating
The Marshside Surgery, Fylde Road | 12 responses | 5.33 rating
Trinity Practice, Derby Road | 6 responses | 2.00 rating
Many of the comments left with the survey also paint a picture of patients generally frustrated with the lack of access to local surgeries.
One patient at Cumberland House commented via the survey: “I understand the challenges but at some point, they need to stop closing themselves off and become more accessible again. 3 times in the last 2 years I have been sent to A&E with a sick child, putting yet more pressure on stretched A&E doctors, when the surgery were unwilling to help. Apparently A&E doctors are fine to do what GPs now seem unwilling to.”
The system employed by a number of practices of only offering general appointments requested by phone as the surgery opened in a large queue, received significant criticism from comments on the survey.
149 patients of Churchtown Medical Centre responded to the survey, giving an indication of significant dissatisfaction at a recent takeover from St Marks that has been “poorly communicated to patients” and seen a high turnover of practitioners, although a recently launched e-consult feature did receive an amount of positive feedback.
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