Ley Hill Surgery Sutton Coldfield

Brilliant GP. Very good.

I need to explain first of all that Ley Hill Surgery used to be lovely. We have been patients there for 26 years and never had a problem, until it was sucked up in to the dreadful Sutton Coldfield Group Practice. I also cannot phone the surgery. This is because of the total lack of help from them during lockdown when I felt suicidal. I phoned about 8 or 9 times, knowing I needed help and all I got was "All the phone triage appointments are gone for today, ring back tomorrow" Even when I told them I was having flashes of wanting to injure myself. So, now, when I want anything, because the Messages section on the website has been turned off (too many messages, apparently!) my only option is to go to the surgery.
I saw a specialist and had tests done at the local hospital, Good Hope, at the behest of the surgery, in June and July 2023. Since that time I have heard nothing. After 6 months I decided to chase my results, particularly a DEXA bone density scan. I was curious about this result. I had to first of all chase the Imaging Centre at Good Hope. The test had been reported 2 days after it was done in late July 2023. They agreed to send it to my GP.
Visit 1: 16th January 2024. I explained about my tests 6 months ago, that Imaging had sent the result through and could I have a copy please. I was told the doctor "would have to give permission" for this. I pointed out that I did not need the doctor's permission, under Data Protection I was entitled to see the results. The Receptionist insisted, "This is the process now." This irritating phrase is much used by the staff at SCGP. I reiterated that under Data Protection I was entitled to see my results. She changed tack and said the doctor would have to "review the results" and if he agreed I could collect a copy. A week passed with nothing.
Visit 2: Monday 22nd January 2024. Bearing in mind each time I go I have to stand in a queue for 15-20 minutes. The Receptionist checked the computer and said the GP had not "completed the task" she sent him. I asked why staff couldn't just speak to the doctors. She rolled her eyes as if to say, I wish. She sent the "task" by email to him urgently. This doctor is in the same building!
Next to happen was a long phone call with someone from General Enquiries at SCGP. I could collect my results, but the doctor wanted to speak to me about them. Fine, until she insisted I had to put aside a whole morning or whole afternoon to wait around for a phone call. I explained I could not do this because of my diary. I am self-employed, I see clients and I cannot answer my phone when I am with a client. I pointed out that face to face appointments are timed, why not phone calls. I got a trail of the standard phrases this surgery uses - "its the process we use now," "That's just the way it is," "I can't do anything about it .." Then she said I could book (presumably a face to face appointment) online. SCGP's fancy new website, which, the leaflet tells you "Avoids the 8am rush" and "Easy" and "Book any time you choose". I said I would try it that afternoon. Oh, no, she said, the booking online for appointments is only open 7.30am to 12 noon, "because all the appointments are gone by then." I then offered 2 days in February when my diary was free, to wait around for a possible phone call. Oh, no, she said, the diary is only open to the end of January at the moment! Keep trying, she said, until you go on and February is open. Useless. By then my own diary will be booked up. There is NO consideration for working patients by this group practice. I am not sick, lying in bed, to wait for a phone call anytime, but that is how they treat you. She suggested I could log on to the NHS website, using my email and phone number that the surgery uses. She said I could find all my hospital test results there.
I went through the long process of doing this, only to find the website said "Access is not granted"
I noticed a weirdly long email address, nhsbsolic.scgp@nhs.net, or similar. I thought I would try and email the surgery and explain that I had no access to my results. I have an outlook.com email address. As soon as I had sent this email, Outlook blocked my email account and it took me 20 minutes to get it unblocked! I was not impressed! If I use the email again, Outlook may well block my email account permanently. I cannot get any assistance from the surgery about this, although they recommended I do this.
So, the only thing left to me was Visit 3: to collect my results. And when I got home and opened the envelope, they were completely illegible! The print was very small and so blurred they were unreadable.
Visit 4: To show them how unreadable the results are. I discover they came in colour, but were printed out in black and white. I ask now if I can have them emailed to me, in case my printer can do a better job. Yes, they would "send a task" to General Enquiries, to ask them to email my result to me. I checked my email address with them and it was correct.
I return home and a while later receive an email from General Enquiries. It does not have my results. The email says that I must create some kind of special encrypted email account in order to have confidential medical information emailed to me. And they have attached a PDF which explains how to do this. The PDF is SEVENTEEN pages long! And it is entirely in computer gobbledegook. I burst into tears at the computer and went into a meltdown. At this point I had made four visits to the surgery over 2 weeks, in my busy working life, to get the result of a test that I am entitled to have and this surgery had been nothing but obstructive. I am not an IT expert. I did not even comprehend the title on the first page! I thought it was a mistake. It looked like something for staff, not patients. I found, on page 17, two phone numbers. One for general help and another that was really for NHS staff. I phoned the first number, only for the phone to tell me, "This number is not recognised." I phoned the second number and tried to explain my problem and ask for help to set up this "encrypted" email account. As soon as the gabbling foreign man on the other end realised I was a novice with computers and a patient, he put the phone down on me!
Deeply distressed and in tears, I drove back to the surgery, parked as I always have to, a long way away, and waited again in a queue, only to burst into tears again at the desk, as I explained I could not begin to understand the computer-speak in the huge document. What did I get? "Well, there's nothing I can do, its the process we use now." In the end, because I was so distressed, she said she would send yet another "task" to General Enquiries, but that was all she could do.
Home, and a while later the phone rang. General Enquiries. Apparently only 3 of the 17 pages actually tell you how to set up the special email account, but I couldn't understand that because I don't have a degree in computing! But, she was finally, kind enough to check my email address and said she would email my results to me.
I am reasonably intelligent, an ex-midwife, but I find these "processes" bullying and exhausting. Fortunately I am also relatively healthy and well, because I dread having to approach my surgery now. They are obstructive and unhelpful, completely inflexible and do not understand that patients are real people with real lives.

Getting an appointment is horrible. They are not serving the public as you'd expect. The GP does not care.

Can't book by phone go to website no appointments available for 3 weeks how on earth am I supposed to get a doctor's appointment

Lockdown affected my mental health considerably. I phoned my GP surgery on at least 8 or 9 occasions, trying to get help. I told them I was getting flashes of wanting to injure myself. I knew this was a dangerous red flag. All I got on every occasion was a trilling receptionist saying the exact same words, "All the phone triage appointments are gone for today, ring back tomorrow." I phone the Samaritans one morning at 3am and talked to them for 2 hours. In the end I had to turn to a private psychotherapist for some advice, but not ongoing treatment because it was unaffordable as I was prevented from working. I am self-employed.
I now have some kind of PTSD which has left me completely unable to phone my surgery. I know they hardly answer the phone at all anyway now and waiting times are 30-50 minutes. But I know if I was told there were no appointments and to ring back tomorrow I would start screaming and not stop. I CANNOT phone this dreadful surgery, which is now part of a Group Practice. A neighbour, ex-Health Visitor, who used to work for one of the 6 surgeries now in this Group, refers to it as a "money-making conglomerate". Letters of complaint, no matter which surgery, are rumoured to all be sent to one GP who oversees everything and complaints just disappear.
The Group offers the same dreadful website for each Practice and this is how I was able to make appointments. Not through the Make An Appointment part - because although 3 or 4 weeks appointments are listed, none are ever available. All gone. So I used to send a Message. I explained long ago about my PTSD and the way I was treated and they know I cannot phone the surgery, so I was told I could make an appointment through the Messages part of the website. But recently, needing an appointment for a bleeding mole on my back, I found the Messages part greyed out. I had to physical travel to the surgery to stand at the desk and ask to be seen. Only to be told that ALL first appointments are now phone consultations. I was THERE, physically there. They were suggesting I travel home, wait for a phone call and travel all the way back again! I said I would not and that I wanted a face to face appointment and I would wait. After much muttering and black looks in my direction, I was given a face to face appointment and saw the doctor 10 minutes later. She immediately fast-tracked me for possible malignant melanoma.
While I was there I asked WHY the Messages part of the website was greyed out. Oh, there were 'too many' messages and the poor Receptionists had to read them all! So they now deny patients the possibility of sending a Message at all! Lazy and uncaring.
More recently I developed what I felt might be a chest infection. I am 65 and asthmatic and felt concerned. But I could not phone the surgery. If I go to lift the phone I start shaking and crying, because of what they did to me during lockdown. I felt too ill to travel to the Practice, stand in long queue and have to argue for a face to face appointment to save me a second journey. Instead I made an appointment with a private GP, whose practice is very close to my home, where I knew I would be seen promptly. I had turned to them during lockdown, because they answered the phone immediately and face to face appointments were and still are, the norm there. Cost for consultation £75, cost for antibiotic prescription, £9.65. Cost for the thyroid tests and treatment I had to have from them during lockdown - and now - because my GP refuses to treat me properly for the thyroid problem - has run in to hundreds of pounds. £150 annually for thyroid blood tests, £9.60 for every prescription, which would be free if it were NHS because hypothyroidism is a lifelong condition.
My NHS GP Practice was fine before lockdown and before it became a money-making conglomerate. Now it is appalling. On the two occasions I have stood in a queue in the surgery, everyone is complaining about the wait for the phone to be answered, the lack of face to face appointments, etc.
I need help for the PTSD caused by my GPs appalling service during lockdown, but do not know how to go about getting it. I cannot afford private psychotherapy. It is entirely the NHS GPs fault, and they should provide help, but I cannot phone the surgery, cannot leave a Message on the awful website.

Very happy and satisfied with the excellent serviced received over the years.

They have no knowledge about my medication for epilepsy. I don't know what is going on. All the repeats are fine. They don't do the checks or reviews on the medication which gets done when I go to the hospital.

Made appointment for my wife before going on holiday in October

It's difficult to get through. There is long waiting times on the phone. You have to wait it out. If its important. The GP appointments are face to face when I do get one.

Very good compared to my old GP. They took an interest in seeing what the main cause was for anaemia and referred on to hospital to haematology for blood tests. Explained the results really well and kept up dated through text messages sent to my phone. Really good.