An Island doctors’ surgery has apologised after patients spent more than 90 minutes on hold last week.
While trying to raise a complaint with Esplanade Surgery last Wednesday, one patient, who wished to remain anonymous, was trying to speak to someone for an hour and 35 minutes, moving from ninth to first in the queue.
In the end, they resorted to visiting the surgery on Ryde Esplanade and have since called for improvements to be made.
Responding to concerns, Esplanade Surgery said the long answer times were as a result of staff sickness and apologised to any patients inconvenienced.
In the recently released GP surgery survey, Esplanade Surgery ranked seventh — out of the 12 Island doctors — on how easy patients thought it was to get through to the practice by phone.
Another complaint was also made about the surgery refusing to accept patients’ letters to doctors, some containing medical information.
In one instance, a patient, who had a letter from a specialist which had been requested by their GP, was turned away with their letter rejected.
Esplanade Surgery said in that instance the patient’s letter should have been accepted and was resolved the next day.
Following the problems, the surgery has now suspended a trial service — which was implemented to improve patient care, it says — whereby receptionists made clinical appointments for patients who brought in letters.
A health watchdog has also been involved and contacted the surgery, who told them they were looking to resolve the issue.
Joanna Smith, manager of Healthwatch Isle of Wight, said:
“We are aware that a significant number of Island residents have reported difficulties in accessing their GP practices, so we would urge all practices to provide as many opportunities as possible for people to correspond with them.
“Many people have communication difficulties — they do not have access to the internet or are not able to spend long periods of time on the phone — so it is essential they have the same opportunities to correspond with primary care services as everyone else.”
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