The Breckland Alliance

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!

It's all fine. I had a query today and it was resolved.
Sometimes they're a little slow updating their records but other than that they're OK. I had an annual review six weeks ago and it wasn't on my records when I looked at their website.

I brought my toddler in who's been ill for two weeks but they couldn't find anything wrong. Although she wouldn't let them look in her ears! I feel OK about it as they can't give antibiotics or anything without knowing what's wrong so that's fair enough. She said to come back Friday if she's still ill. I rang up this morning and made the appointment that way.
Generally it's pretty good, they've always seen me and my daughter when we've needed them.

People moan they can't get an appointment but I've never had a problem. I've got a lot of health problems so that might be why.
I ring up at 8.30 and I'm happy with that.
They're never stand-offish, they're very professional.

I think they are really good and they try their best. They are very responsive when I have had issues.
Knowing the system and triage helps you get an appointment. They are apologetic if they get something wrong.
Occasionally there are glitches like for example when they try a new system but it's just as it is and I wouldn't complain for something like that.

It's alright for me. They are usually on time and efficient, occasionally not, but to be expected. I phone to make my appointments and it seems to work fairly well. I was not able to get an appointment for my wife today but they are going to call back later. It's just a lot of backwards and forwards.