Bath Row Medical Practice, Attwood Green Health Centre

When I am working it's physically impossible to get an appointment. You have to go there, as if you call you can't get through and you can't get an appointment.
The online system doesn't work as you can't re-book. If you work you can't get in, so the only way to get an appointment is to take unpaid leave.

When I make an appointment with the GP it is essential that they remind me of the appointment by text. I would often miss my appointments and I get the dates and times mixed. Due to my problems and the medication, I have memory problems and problems with numbers. About 2 years ago (When they didn't yet have the text reminder system) I raised this issue with my GP, when I was waiting for my appointment for two hours, and they got very angry with me. He said you patients waste my time and come here with other issues. Other doctors are brilliant. It's still difficult to get appointments. Phoning and waiting in the queue and then no appointments available.

although getting an appointment is hard, once i got one i was helped, and most importantly listened to about how i felt around my mental health. i was referred to mental heath support services but when i see a Dr they often ask if it helping and suitable for me

I'm a 75 year old person with no major health issues. I served in the navy many years ago and ended up living in South Africa for years. Recently I had to move back to UK. I don’t have stable accommodation but I’ve used this GP and they have been great. They did a full health check up on me. Having said that, a 10 minute appointment time seems very short if you happen to have real health issues.

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.