The Vauxhall practice is a new practice for me. I’ve had two appointments: 1) cervical smear appointment with the nurse - excellent care: the nurse talked me through everything she was doing and explained how the test was different from the last time I had it. 2) phone appointment with Dr Shah- disappointing and frustrating. I have had asthma my whole life. The last few times I’ve had flare ups I’ve been in the US (even though I normally live in the UK). I ran out of my preventer inhaler from the US. I know that the US and the UK sometimes use different inhalers so I was expecting that he might recommend something different. When I asked Dr Shah for a replacement he gave me ventolin, which is an emergency/ relief inhaler. I told him I’m using the inhaler every day at the moment and he told me to just use ventolin. However, every other GP or asthma doctor I’ve seen for the last 15 years has told me to only use ventolin as a last resort and to use the preventer inhaler instead. The NHS website says the same thing: use preventer inhalers regularly and a relief inhaler only as needed. Ventolin can make me feel shaky and can make my heart beat faster. I felt dismissed on this call (which lasted 7 minutes or less), I felt like I couldn’t access medicine that I need and I felt like I was given bad medical advice. I appreciate this might just be because it was a phone appointment and the NHS is under a lot of stress- but it also feels like pretty basic knowledge.