Bath Row Medical Practice, Attwood Green Health Centre

I have had nothing but bad experiences at this practice for the last 4 years and I'm glad to finally be moving away so I can go to a different GP surgery. It's extremely difficult to get an appointment (2 to 3 week waits are normal), the receptionists are very rude and defensive, and the appointments are routinely less than 10 minutes long. I have never seen the same doctor there twice, which is a problem if you're dealing with scans/referrals/consultants as they all assume there's a named person at your GP who can receive letters etc, but this isn't the case. I've been left waiting unnecessarily for weeks because letters have been lost etc. Once I was prescribed something by a doctor whose name I didn't know (no badge, didn't introduce herself) and the name on the prescription was from another doctor who'd left the practice a while ago - so I had no idea who'd actually prescribed me the drugs when I had a complaint (more on that later).

The worst thing about this place is the quality of the care, as I have been being treated (or at least I've been trying to get treatment) for a painful problem for the last six months, and during that time they've made some serious errors. The problem means that I struggle to eat, so getting it treated is urgent, but nobody seems to care about that. The worst error was prescribing me with a common anti-inflammation drug, which was helping my pain, only to phone me a few days later and tell me to stop taking it urgently as it is 'dangerous for your heart' and 'shouldn't have been prescribed'. I did so, was very worried about it, carried on being in pain, then later it turned out that of course they were safe for me to use and were re-prescribed to me by a doctor who actually knows what he's doing at the hospital. In the meantime I'd been left in pain for at least a month with my problem getting worse. The surgery didn't have a record of who'd prescribed me the pills as it was under a previous doctor's name, presumably because they seem to have new doctors every day and I guess they must all be temps or substitutes. It's also very difficult to get repeat prescriptions, as every repeat apparently needs a doctor's appointment before it's approved, and this means you have to wait for weeks without medication. Because this happens so often I've had to avoid some treatment routes for my problem because the risk to my health of running out of the pills and stopping them suddenly outweighs the possible benefit. I weaned myself off my mental health medication for this reason too, as I was left without my prescription for days every month, causing me distress. This is very dangerous as some pills have the risk of suicide if you stop them suddenly.

Today I paid £10 for transport to an appointment first thing this morning, about a letter which had been sent to my GP from a consultant - it was just a red tape appointment which I needed to get a prescription I'd been told I needed last month, and had been waiting until now to see someone. I was told twice by receptionists that the letter had already arrived, but in the actual appointment, the doctor couldn't find it and told me they 'might' be able to get a copy of the letter by fax (since they'd clearly either lost it or never had it in the first place and lied to me), and I'd have to go away and maybe be called back to maybe get the medication I need for the pain I've been left in. It was difficult not to cry, because I was so disappointed in the practice, but I wasn't really surprised. Everyone I have dealt with at this surgery seems to be incompetent and don't even seem to care that their patients need their help and have nowhere else to turn. I have never complained about a free service before, but I feel like I have to at this point because this service is dangerously badly run.

What could have been done better? Helping disabled individuals more by giving advice on services available to them.

I've been having lots of appointments for an ongoing issue and really needed more help than they were giving me. At one point I said in an appointment that the NICE guidelines say I should be getting a particular treatment and in a timely manner, but the Dr just brushed it off and said oh, NICE guidelines say a lot of things that only work in an ideal world.
The Drs ask me to come back every few weeks, but it is so incredibly hard to get an appointment, it sometimes takes me longer to go. The waiting room is almost always really quiet, they never seem to have enough people working actually providing appointments.

Reception staff are rude and abrupt and can never get an appointment Dr never appears to have any sense of urgency my dad goes to the surgery and never gets a clear answer so he will be leaving aslo

Can never get an appointment no matter what time or day you call. Today its telling me the maximum amount of calls have been reached and terminates call its ridiculous.

You cannot get appointments as they are hard to contact.

It's incredibly difficult to get through on the phone to request an appointment. The phone line goes from being closed to a statement about the queue being full, goodbye, and it automatically hangs up on you, in seconds at opening time. You end up dialing multiple times to even get in the queue to be on hold to speak to a receptionist, which is very very frustrating. They clearly need a phone system that offers much more capacity for callers. I've also experienced the system automatically hanging up on me if I've been in the queue for more than 15 minutes without speaking to someone!

Its no better if you go and queue in person before the surgery opens, often they run out of appointments to give people at the back of the queue, and just tell you to come back another day to try again.

The online appointment system used to work well, but they are switching systems so it's been down for weeks, making the only option to get an appointment fighting to get in the queue on the phone!

Once you get an appointment and attend, the practice is very quiet, which clearly shows they are not able to offer enough appointments to meet demand.
They used to offer telephone consultations with a Dr, so if you couldn't get an appointment you'd been assessed on the phone, but the receptionists don't offer you this option anymore. I rang recently to ask for a telephone appointment and was told to ring 111 or go to a walk in centre. Very unhelpful and offered no continuity of care.

Given how hard it is to make an appointment, you'd think the Drs would friendlier, but their approaches massively vary. Some seem to go out of their way to help, whilst others could not be less helpful. Having fought to even get an appointment, it's frustrating to not receive good treatment.

The reception staff on the desk are very helpful if given a chance to be, but sadly often have to bear the brunt of people's frustrations with the flawed appointment system.

This practice used to operate a drop in system for appointments, which I miss greatly.

Since the Glossy new building has opened it is impossible to get an appointment when you are actually sick unless you can crawl to the place and queue up at 8am,which if you are sick and cant manage it. Hard Luck.This is obviously done to put people off coming hoping they will just give up! The powers that be know that as well as we do. This is not only due to the Doctors, but the NHS overall. However if someone could give an explanation as to why since the place opened their only seems to be a couple of Doctors working at any given time. Where are the other doctors? As I can never get a straight answer. If they are somewhere else then could someone please provide an explanation as their are plenty of us who think the same thing. Sincerely, a frustrated patient.

Nice friendly staff. Autism aware.

I was referred to a counselling service by the GP, but when there were delays in accessing that service the GP said that they were not responsible and I felt they were rude.