Hedge End Medical Centre

I have been registered with this surgery since I moved to Hedge End in Dec 2018. I have experienced no problems with either the Reception Staff, Nurses or Doctors. I have a couple of issues that need reviewing on a regular basis, namely blood tests, but the practice nurses, particularly Carla whom I seen to see most often, are all great & it's nice to have a little chat & laugh when I visit. I try not to make face to face appointments with the Doctors as I feel that they have enough patients who are in greater need of this service than myself. I usually arrange a duty Doctor call & all of these have been dealt with efficiently & effectively. A few referrals to Southampton General for minor procedures have all been completed in a timely manner & with the minimum of fuss. I wish I could find a local dentist that could provide as excellent a service as this establishment. Finally, thank you for your service during this particularly busy past 5 months. You're all heroes.....

Following ongoing issues trying to book appointments and blood tests at the surgery and quite frankly, it being near on impossible and very stressful each time, I have had to resort to self prescribing now. Despite trying, I am now not able to get a telephone appointment with my doctor, even when she has text me to ask me to book one with her to discuss my latest blood results. I called today on the dot of 11am, as advised, to secure a call with her but even then there were no calls available with her...that was at the very start of the release time! Told to try again at 4pm tomorrow but I have an evening meeting at work so will not be able to call then. Waiting yet another week for further routine calls to be available with her (or not as the case maybe!) isn't acceptable!

I have various long term health conditions and need continuity of care and believe the surgery has a duty of care to their patients. Speaking to an alternative doctor would not work on my case as it would take me the length of the call to have to explain the whole of my issue and the treatment i have received for it all again as I am not confident they would read the lengthy back history of my notes.

You're told not to block services by going to A&E but when you're being blocked at GP surgeries despite following their advice to call at certain times, this is exactly what is going to happen!

There needs to be time slots allocated to continuing care for people with long term health conditions that regularly need to access appointments for healthcare/blood tests etc

I’ve continually had excellent service from Hedge End Medical Centre when using E-consult - on my lastest Econsult, I submitted the form around 8.30 am and had a doctors call me back by 10.45 am and my issue was resolved. On other occasions my query isn’t been so urgent, but they’ve always got back to me, usually on the same day and occasionally the next day. Their triage service on Econsult is excellent. Thank you Hedge End Medical Centre

I can’t fault the doctors or nurses there, they’re brilliant. But for every other reason it deserves a zero star rating. I’ve been with Hedge End Medical Centre since I was a kid and up until 2020 I couldn’t really fault the place, but since covid it’s gone downhill… FAST!

The term fobbed off comes to mine when you try to get follow up results or an appointment. You do an e-consult, you get a text asking to call, you end up on hold for ages, then get told there aren’t any appointments and to call back tomorrow… repeat. If by some miracle they call you, they give you the most limited appointments available and if you physically cannot make them then you repeat the above process, as there’s no way they’ll be calling you back.

Excellent care and communication by this surgery due to my dad recently coming out of hospital. They have been so helpful with his care and giving me advice.

GP wouldn’t describe medication that I was strongly advised by a private doctor because of a popular ‘book he read’.
A year later and I have been finally prescribed the medication by another GP.
I don’t understand why GP’s do this. It’s just wasted loads of time for everyone.

Appalling, 5 days ago about 8pm tried to do an e consult, not able to do one as not during the day! Tried 7.40pm Sunday Evening in reediness for 8am Monday morning, e consult not available at weekends!!

I want to use the e consult when I want to when it is convenient to ME, not when the authorities say i must use it, not surprised with the state of the country! Health, HM, police, fire, education immigration need i say more !......

Have been registered here since I was born. The doctors & nurses have always been kind and helpful to me, and my wider family. Appreciate it is a hard time we’re all living in, and this review is simply meant as a way to inform the managers of my own experience. Overall, the staff are doing their best and, of course, I appreciate everyone’s efforts despite the obvious roadblocks and pressure, hence the well deserved 5 star review for my experience based on having been a patient here for the last 25+ years. This is intended only as constructive criticism, and is for recent changes over the past couple of years only.

Firstly, I have to mention that reception staff do not seem to take any sort of pressure very well and they are often visibly stressed. This means they can sometimes come off as very disinterested and abrasive over the phone. However, if you catch them on a good day, they are generally knowledgable, helpful, and kind. It really depends on the day, and how busy they are.

The other thing that I wanted to discuss, since covid, is that patients are required to call at 8:30am, and sit on hold for 30+ minutes in a large queue to be able to get an appointment. This system doesn’t work as a “one size fits all”, particularly for those situations where people are busy and cannot sit on hold for 30+ minutes at a time. I would like to understand why this system is still active when the previous pre-covid system (although now a distant memory!) worked really well. The new approach shows no sign of changing any time soon. I find this an archaic and inefficient system in the modern day, which ends up wasting everyone’s time, including the reception staff. No wonder they are more stressed than ever. They’re essentially working in a busy call centre, and not a doctor’s surgery reception. I imagine that patients are often hostile towards staff as a result of having to wait for so long and having to listen to long phone menus before being able to speak to someone.

I would love to see a proportion of these appointment slots instead offered throughout the day to patients via a digital system which runs alongside the phone call system, so that less technically savvy patients can still get appointments in the way they’re used to.

I think that a digital system should only available to those who have already been triaged or completed an eConsult, and who are required as a “next step” to book a face to face appointment as part of their treatment. I think this would relieve some of the ever-mounting pressure on everyone. It seems crazy to me that in 2022, bookings are still being made by calling a human when the technology readily exists to solve such a problem. It doesn’t have to be this hard, with a bit of initial effort.

I’m sure that any sort of digital solution or assistance to the current problem of securing appointments would be welcomed with open arms by the community.

Thank you for reading my review, and for taking the time to understand the situation from a patient’s current perspective. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.