Address: Mile End Road Surgery, 29 Mile End Road, Norwich, NR4 7QXTelephone: 01603442200Website: www.castle-partnership.co.uk
Mile End, Tuckswood, and Gurney Surgeries
Feedback
489 responses from the local community
Friendly and helpful
5
Submitted by Feedback collected by Healthwatch Norfolk 9th August 2022
It's good. I have only lived here just over a year and compared to my previous surgery people are friendly and more helpful. It's also a nice clean environment and I can always get an appointment.
Submitted by Feedback collected by Healthwatch Norfolk 9th August 2022
For every appointment they are very thorough, very understanding, very diligent. I feel listened to and they are always very good. They are doing the best they can.
i have been trying to speak to a receptionist by phone as i need to get to speak to a dr. not picking up phone after 30 minutes waiting. Not able to leave message on website anymore...so how do we get in touch with the surgery?
Reply from Castle Partnership
Good afternoon
Thank you for your recent feedback.
I am sorry your experience did not meet the standard you expect as a patient. Following an increase in staff absence, we have now changed the way the calls are answered which should reduce the waiting times on the phone, and are also reviewing access to the website. We hope to announce the changes very soon.
Once again, I am sorry you were not able to get through on the phone, and I hope that the new processes will prevent similar problems in the future.
Best wishes.
Karen Bilby
Practice Operations Manager
Castle Partnership
Poor appointments communication
4
Submitted by Andrew Sutkowski20th July 2022
I received a text on 29th June informing me of an appointment at Tuckswood on 20th July at 9:40. I then received a confirmation text from Mile End surgery on 13th July with a web link. Following the link confirms the appointment with day, date and time but NO location. I went to Tuckswood for the appoinment and was told it was at Mile End!. Could you please include appointment location in the web link messages. Thanks.
It is almost impossible to get a face-to-face appointment with a GP; offered a telephone appt every time. I have osteoarthritis in my knee; hard to judge the level of swelling, where it is located, the impact on mobility, the impact on mental health, and so on when all you are offered is a telephone call. When you are in constant pain and struggling NOT to give up and keep fighting the battle to go on, the lack of support from the GP does not help.
I have been referred for a knee replacement but have not been given to courtesy of being copied into the letter sent. I have asked for an OT appt but that has not been forthcoming. On the last call with the GP was told I need to get blood tests and to request an appt online. But where online? The website no longer offers that option. However, the telephone message tells you to go online to book it!
I appreciate that all surgeries are dealing with a huge amount of calls and are under pressure as are many people too! Please update your telephone message to stop advising people to book appts online, a function that is no longer available as far as I can see.
Received a voicemail asking me to contact the surgery. On hold for approximately 45 minutes. Was told they didn’t know why I was asked to call and that the Dr would call me back. Phone rang once then was cut off. After about 2 hours I physically attended the surgery where I was given conflicting information by the 2 receptionists. One said the Dr was with a patient and I could wait to see her the other told me the Dr had gone home. Received another phone call that was cut off prematurely so tried to ring back. On hold this time for 53 minutes only to be cut off. Finally received a text message at 17.33 to ask me to ring while I was still on hold. The receptionist said they had no record of phone calls made or received by me. On checking my notes online I discovered what would appear to be a retrospective entry covering the phone calls they previously told me had not been recorded. I expressed my dissatisfaction to the reception staff who advised me to make a complaint but wouldn’t provide me with a complaint form. They said I had to do it online. Both my husband and myself spent ages trying to access the complaint form with no success. I am reasonably sure that access to a complaint form should be easy to find and readily available. Needless to say it is a Friday evening now so will not be able to contact the surgery until after the weekend. I am extremely frustrated, I will not bother to ring in future but attend in person due to the horrifically long waits and inability of the reception staff to advise me what the message was.
After waiting an hour, and number 50, in the queue an getting an appointment with a doctor 2 weeks later, I was told I could only ask about one thing, and was given a diagnosis and told to go home and Google it!
I got the invitation for patients aged 40-70 NHS Health Check service which includes blood test. First, I tried to book an appointment online but there is no option to book an appointment online for routine check up then I called several times in a day to book the appointment and each time calling queue is 21-24. How can you be this busy every time and how can you guys claim that “patients calls are very important for you”. Even after waiting for exactly For an hour I could not talk the calling agent. This is really annoying. You guys aren’t care and value about patients’ time, money and most importantly health. Really disappointed with your service.
Reply from Castle Partnership
Dear Anonymous,
I am very sorry to hear that you have experienced this issue in trying to contact the surgery. Not that this is an excuse but we have had higher levels of staff sickness/isolation absence recently and a number of vacant posts we have tried to recruit into. Like other sectors we have found it difficult to recruit into some posts.
We do now have more staff back from absence/isolation and we have recruited a number of new staff who have started with the partnership to help increase the number of Receptionists we have. We also have other staff due to start shortly and we continue to actively recruit for further staff as well.
We are also currently investigating a new telephony system that will make it easier to contact the surgery and signpost patients according to their requirements. We are in talks with our current supplier to see how this might be integrated with our current systems.
We will be relaunching our online booking system very shortly to enable Pts to book appointments and contact the Reception team.
All of these are to help improve the recent unfortunate situation we have faced. We are committed to provide the best service we can to our patients and fully accept that this situation has meant that we have not been able to do this. For that we are very sorry.
BR
Marc Rolph
Business Manager
Castle Partnership
Terrible telephone response times
1
Submitted by Anonymous4th July 2022
I have already been on hold for 30 minutes at 15:00 on a Monday afternoon and I am called number 6 in the queue. I work from home so can accommodate being on hold for this long, but this would not be feasible for someone who have limited time due to their job or is elderly. This length of of waiting time is completely unacceptable.
Reply from Castle Partnership
Dear Anonymous,
I am very sorry that you have had issues when trying to contact the partnership. We have had higher than usual levels of staff sickness absence and have had a number of vacant post that we have had difficulty trying to recruit into. All of this has had an impact on the levels of service we have been able to provide and has led to longer waits than we would have liked.
We do now have staff back from sickness absence/isolation and we have recruited a number of new staff into post. We still have new staff who will be joining us in the coming weeks. All of this to help ensure that we are providing the staff into Reception and make it as easy as possible for patients to contact the surgery.
We will also be reopening our online booking system very soon to allow patients to book via the website appointments or contact Reception. We are also looking into a new telephone system to improve the patient experience and ensure that, as much as possible, patients are not waiting this length of time to get through to us. I completely agree that this is not acceptable.
Once again please accept my sincere apologises for the issues you have faced in trying to contact the surgery. We hope that with these improvements in place, we will be able to ensure that we have a robust and improved level of customer service for all our patients.
BR
Marc Rolph
Business Manager
Castle Partnership