Goodrest Croft Surgery

GOODREST CROFT SURGERY

DR P GIDDINGS 1 GOODREST CROFT DR J BHAGRATH YARDLEY WOOD DR K CHAWATHEY BIRMINGHAM DR S SINGH B14 4JU DR R SHARMA 0121 474 2059 Practice Manager: Sue Siddorn ------

November 2017

Dear Patients

As a practice we realise there have been problems accessing both emergency and routine appointments. We would like to reassure you that we are all working flat out and providing extra appointments to try and accommodate the rise in demand.

To help us try and deliver the appropriate service to those who need it most, please try and use the emergency appointments for urgent clinical issues that cannot wait. For prescription requests, medical certificates and other non-urgent enquiries please ask your usual Doctor to call you back, if you are unsure about the appropriate action to take. Please remember your pharmacist and NHS 111 are excellent sources of advice for a wide range of medical questions.

Sometimes despite our best efforts on the day, the number of requests for face to face consultations with the doctor exceeds the capacity, at which that GP can safely cope. In a similar way to not wanting a pilot of a plane to be overloaded/overtired during a flight, we have to accept that it is only safe to see a finite number of patients safely in order to provide accurate, caring and compassionate medicine. On these occasions, as a safety valve, our reception staff will ask that you try and access assistance from our walk in centres and they will provide full details of location and opening times.

The reception staff do not block appointments from patients and are only following instructions from the doctors as to how many appointments are available to book. There has been a significant rise in the number of patients who verbally abuse our staff due to their frustration and we must now take this matter seriously as our staff should not have to be subjected to such behaviour.

As you are well aware from the news, there is currently a shortage of doctors wanting to follow a career in general practice and cuts to social care and welfare only serve to heighten the pressure on acute medical services, as care in the community is spread more thinly, meaning those most vulnerable, often with multiple medical problems, are hit hardest and may suffer deterioration in their conditions which then present acutely at GPs, thus perpetuating the vicious circle.

At this difficult time we would like to apologise if the service we provide is unable to cope with the demands placed on it. We are grateful for your patience and for your continued support and help in using the current resources responsibly.

Yours sincerely

Drs Giddings, Bhagrath, Chawathey, Singh and Sharma