Reply from Upper Tooting Road Medical Centre
Mon, 30 Sep 2019 16:13:25 +0100

Dear Anonymous, Apologies for the delay in replying and I hope that you've settled into Tooting. We're very sorry to hear of your negative experience with us over the phone and quite surprised at your account of events. Feedback is genuinely very important to us and we would love to discuss this in more detail with you to get a better idea of what happened and better understand how we can avoid this in future. If this is something you would still be interested in, please feel free to contact Upper Tooting Surgery over the phone on 020 3883 5600 or drop by in person and ask to speak to the Operations Manager, Juliana. In the meantime, if are still interested in registering here or at our nearby site Trevelyan House, please feel free to come in and speak to us or get in touch via our websites, where we would be happy to facilitate any queries or requests that you might have. Please accept our apologies once more for your experience, it is certainly not the first impression that we aspire to make. Best Wishes, George Newton Patient Relations Officer Upper Tooting Surgery

Reply from Upper Tooting Road Medical Centre
Wed, 07 Aug 2019 11:54:21 +0100

Thank you very much for your review. We try to share all feedback with the team here and critical points are important for our over all improvement. I'm sorry to hear that you've had so much trouble getting through to us on the phones, we are aware that waiting times on the phone lines have sometimes been longer than is satisfactory and we are actively making an effort to improve on this. We have recently hired more staff to help fill-out our admin and reception teams, so we hope that this becomes less of an issue in the near future. It's disappointing to hear that you feel staff have been ignoring ringing phones when you have been in to the Practice, this is understandably not at all a reassuring experience as a patient and we will make sure that this is fed back to the staff concerned. In regards to your final point, the Surgery does stay open until 20:00 during the week but the phone lines close a bit earlier, at 18:30. We are less able to deal with emergencies so near to our closing time and it is quite unlikely that we would have been able to accommodate an emergency appointment. If it is able to wait until morning, we would be more prepared with a same-day appointment. Otherwise, patients can call 111, who can arrange an out-of-hours appointment for you if necessary. I hope that with continued feedback and with our recent additions to staff, you find it easier and quicker to contact us in the future. Kind Regards, George Newton Patient Relations Officer

Reply from Upper Tooting Road Medical Centre
Wed, 07 Aug 2019 11:13:30 +0100

Thank you very much for your review, critical feedback is a vital learning tool for all of the team here. I am sorry to hear that you left waiting for an appointment for over three weeks. There are times of year that are busier than others and waiting times might otherwise be exacerbated by requesting a specific clinician or awaiting a specific appointment type. Even so, this does not sound like a typical waiting time and I apologise if this was the case. Keep in mind that if you do feel as though you need to be seen more urgently, you can contact us for a same-day appointment, which are available each day during the week. We also reserve appointments that are bookable online via Patient Access and if you do not currently have an online account, I would urge you to speak to a receptionist to arrange this. In regards to your prescription, all medications are now meant to be sent electronically by default and I apologise again if this was not the case. There is an option on your patient record for us to add your personal preference of how you would like your prescriptions to be issued and collected. It would be worth speaking to one of our staff to make sure that this matches your preferences. I do hope that your future experiences with us prove to be more positive and efficient. Kind Regards, George Newton Patient Relations Officer