The Breckland Alliance

Can’t get any appointments. In severe pain and being sick was told they can’t do anything cause my pain relief is too high. Then told cause I’m under pain clinic go to them instead. It seems if u have medical condition they don’t want to know. Its not the first time this has happened and it probably won’t be the last

Very good experience. The dr was running late by about 10ish but apologised when I was called in. Apart from that the whole experience was good. I felt that the dr listened to my issues and wanted to help and was clear on what can and cannot help or do rather than string me along with referrals or nothing clear.

I moved here recently and the difference between School Lane and my previous surgery is night and day. It’s well-run and friendly practice. Also the birthday month clinic for asthma checks. It’s such a sensible idea and way more organised than what I was used to before.

Called up in the morning. Was really helpful and saw a dr that day. Also seen the nurses a few times for my condition and have been amazing.

Excellent Service. Nothing is every too much for the clinical staff and the reception staff are helpful too. Yes there might be a longer wait on the phone than I would like, but dealt with quickly and everyone was really compassionate and caring.

The requirement that appointments can only be booked for the same day - either via telephone or the online form as soon as it's available in the morning - creates an unmanageable demand spike. This forces patients with routine, non-urgent needs (such as discussing hospital-requested medication, which is my current situation) to compete directly with more urgent cases. This process makes it extremely difficult to secure an appointment, as proven by the phone queues and the online form closing wit ... hin minutes. I sugest an urgent review of this policy be undertaken to allow future pre-booking for essential, non-urgent consultations.

My appointment was great. She did everything she could and made me another appointment.
I got today's by ringing up this morning.

It's gone right downhill. It's all these telephone appointments, my wife was asked to cough down the phone! They told her to come in and then said she had to go back home and call herself an ambulance. I asked if they could call it for her and they said no so I had to get her back home struggling to walk. She ended up in hospital for two days to get her oxygen levels back up.
I phoned the other day to say I'd done my back in and scratched my eye, they told me I could only ask the doctor about o ... ne thing at a time. To be fair the doctor did call me and send a prescription over for my eye.
When you have a blood test it says 'no further action' no matter what. My last one said that but then I was told to got to hospital. It would be better if they told you what the results mean even if it says 'no further action'.
Also, everything's online and there's a lot of people like me who aren't up on the internet.
You phone up and can't get an appointment but you come in to pick up a prescription and it's empty. So why can't you get in?
When you do see someone they're usually a paramedic and it's always a different one.
Some things really annoy me!

I got on alright today, it was fairly quick. I booked it on the phone this morning.
They're terrible with repeat prescriptions and if you need emergency pills you're stuffed! I'd asked them to send my current lot to the pharmacy near me but they sent it to Pharmacy2U instead, so now I've got to wait. They've done this loads of times. I get really ill when I miss medication and they don't give a monkey's. They never call me to see how I am with it. They just don't look after you.

I've been here over 20 years and I'm perfectly content however getting to see someone can be difficult. It's not their lack of willingness, there's not enough GPs for the number of patients and it seems they can't do the job they'd like to do. Nobody has time to look at the patient as a whole with full knowledge of their history, or explore anything beyond the obvious. Seemingly minor complaints could be misinterpreted leading to potential misdiagnosis.
A while ago they wouldn't see me with som ... ething that should have been examined so the diagnosis was based on photos. This wasn't adequate and led to me having an operation later on. It feels like pressures on time lead to shortcuts.
The other issue is if you're hard of hearing like me, dealing on the telephone with people who have soft voices or regional accents is very hard to understand. The receptionists are very good and try to make themselves clear for me but I'm still given telephone consultations.
They have put systems in place to improve things such as increased slots per day and triaging. I applaud that but it comes back to there's too much demand. I'm not sure what the answer is quite frankly!