The Limes Medical Centre

Today 14Dec22 I called The Limes at 8.30am to request a Doctors telephone call appointment. There were so many callers that I was told via the VM to call back.
I did call again at 12.10 placed on hold eventually the receptionist picked up only to say call in the morning.
The manner of the receptionist was appalling, in fact it brought upon a panic attack through my anxieties.
The system for booking an appointment is a failure, the manner of the receptionist was rude.
If there was a zero rating I would have noted as such.

Dreadful. Lines open at 8.30am, but you can't join a queue once it has passed a certain number so you have to keep phoning and hoping. Eventually was able to join the queue (position 17) at 10.30am. Waited half an hour to speak to a receptionist. Explained symptoms and was told they were booked up so I'd have to phone back on Tuesday because Mondays are a busy day for them! Why not have an automated message saying they're full rather than making you waste hours on the phone?

I normally dread calling the Limes. However I received a call back today within the hour. I was offered an appointment this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Reception was friendly, informative and helpful.
Can't complain this time 🤙

I’ve had a terrible experience with this GP from day one of moving to the local area. The doctors have been lovely and reception has been relatively okay but the system just does not work. When I first moved to the area I went in and registered in person, completed all the paperwork, and sent my history. I became quite sick a few months later and tried to get an appointment and they said I wasn’t registered with them and was put down as a temporary registration. They were very rude acting like it was my fault when it was clearly an error on their side as I did everything in person with the forms they gave me. Since then I’ve had issues constantly with my prescriptions that I have been on for years and when sick again it’s been a huge struggle of trying to get an appointment. I was unable to get through on the phone and was so desperate I went in person only to be told they do not make appointments at the front desk. I find this shocking considering a large amount of the population are elderly people who would probably need to come in to the front desk to discuss things. I feel bad for leaving a review like this, but I just feel like people need to know and avoid registering here.

Utterly totally useless and frustrating! You can’t even get through the automated phone service to try to book a non existent appointment!! If by any miracle you do get through there are never any appointments and even if there were any you must be immediately available on that day. Impossible disgusting futile system!

Terrible! I tried getting through for an appointment yesterday, couldn’t get through and when I finally got through the receptionist was abrupt and said no appointments. Had to call 111 and they put a message through to the gp surgery as they said 1 year of having the same problem with my health is not acceptable, so told me to ring them back up and they were rude yet again. Claiming that you have to ring up at 8.30 on the day when they know full well no one can get through on the day. I rung up again and surprise surprise! Rude tone of voice when I asked a question. I don’t know why surgeries are hiring such rude women as receptionists but they should be ashamed of themselves talking to people like that. I know it’s not their fault the nhs is on it’s knees, but talking in such a nasty tone of voice to people because they’re asking for an appointment considering we’re in a time that if you can’t get an appointment it could cost you your life and not having a shred of empathy shows how morally low these people are. There’s only one receptionist in Epping that is so lovely and helpful. Rest of them are nasty. The gps should be relieving the other nhs services! It shouldn’t have to come to A&E or 111 this is what we pay our NI for and they treat you like you’ve asked them to donate their kidney to you.

It is impossible to ever get through to this GP I think they need to expand their queue limit because it is ridiculous to be trying to call 30 times within 1 hour to finally get through after 3 hours of trying only to be told there’s no appointments left for the day to try again the following morning! Mind blowing…

Really helpful receptionist tried to help me establish who a random NHS text was from. She did everything she could to help me. I was so grateful to her.