Cwmbran Village Surgery

They don't deserve a star, honestly the worst ever experience in my life and I'm 63 this month!
Total and utter incompetence and unfortunately the doctors seem to be other same ilk.
I wish I had the space to let you know of my experience, needless to say I will be changing doctors on the morning!
Good luck to those who stay here!

So a patient with heart issues is refused to be seen by a Dr. Earliest appointment is 1 week. Absolutely disgusting.
Yet again last week (May 22) the receptionist was dismissive and said a dr would call back and no call. They are uncaring and rude.
A close relative of mine passed away and again their care was unprofessional and cold.

My experience is mixed. Firstly the nursing staff have been kind and supportive. My issue is in the main about appointments. I have been dealing with a serious health issue basically on my own. Thankfully in some ways because of my nursing background and the length of time I've had the condition I muddle through even though I have been on high dose steroids.
I saw a Consultant in a face to face consultation...... but still unable to get a GP face to face appointment. Today I have an issue that I am not able to weight bear. I filled in the enormous for a consultation and was told to phone for a routine appointment. By the time I got through no appointments available for next Thursday and as appointments only available for the following week on the next day I.e. Friday next week I have to phone Friday this week. There's no guarantee of getting an appointment that day. It's quite shameful and I cannot understand how GPs can virtually avoid patient contact. They are letting down their patients and sadly at some point evidence will emerge on the extent of missed serious illness in the population due to lack of face to face contact. I feel why bother because you don't get the support you need and I just give up on this surgery.

Don’t bother trying to get an appointment. The receptionists are unhelpful, patronising and sanctimonious at best. You can’t get through on the phone and when you do you can’t make an emergency appointment because you have to fill in a form with very irrelevant information. If you try to make a standard appointment you will be on hold in a queue for over half an hour and then told you can’t have one because there aren’t any left and you’ll have to ring again tomorrow. Also you can’t let the pharmacy submit your prescriptions for you you have to apply every month at the gp and then chase around to find where they’ve sent the prescription. Absolutely unprofessional barrier to good health and go appointments. We pay for this “service”. Oh and you’re in the phone queue after the 3.5 minute recorded message. The practice is a joke.

Was highly impressed in the way the flu clinic was run on Saturday 8th October. Well done to everyone involved

It's getting one above bottom for the nice buildings. They ask you not to abuse staff yet their staff are rude to you. They seriously need some customer service training. I've been a lifelong patient but can't be arsed with the lack of availability of appointments, rudeness of reception staff and the waits to suffer the abuse on the phones while they play the inane messages and music.

There is no empathy if you work, no help when required and the doctors now even refyluse to see you opting for phone calls instead.

They have also introduced an online form to see if they deem u qualify for an appointment l. They fail to realise some people are old and unable to utilise this.

The whole surgery is now anti patient and best avoided in my book.

I've heard good things, positive things about changes to other local surgeries. I just don't understand how this one has become so awful

Can't get through on the phone when you need an appointment, everything has to be an emergency to even get an appointment and that could be a week from the day you called. Online forms are the longest and most tedious way to justify why you want to get help from a Dr. The website cannot handle the traffic of the online appointment booking and this is the way you're told is the 'best' way when you do get through to reception to be told there are no appointments.

I cannot praise the staff enough. The doctors and nurses genuinely care about their patients and go out of there way to help.
The receptionist staff are always ready with a smile and have such a caring nature.
This is by far the nicest surgery I've ever had dealings with.