Tal-Y-Bont Surgery

Had ongoing problems for with my arm over the last few months to the point that I'm struggling to use it and my hand is now going numb as a result.

Despite only trying to ask for some advice about this I'm quickly shut down by the call takers who only seem interested in breathing problems and chest pain - (something which is clearly labelled as a situation for 999 or an emergency department by the surgeries own answerphone)

I've resorted to seeking others for advice (111, chiropractors etc..) but everyone states I should consult my GP, an impossible task to say the least.

Receptionists are very helpful in guiding me to make a call at 0800 hours where there is no one to answer the phone for hours on end or to use their online service which is never available.

I did however get some advice several months ago for a rash whereby they were quite helpful despite it not being a respiratory or chest pain issue...

Had a lot of help from a lovely nurse in Talybont surgery today. I'm quite shy and don't like clinics but this lady was lovely! Thank you for being so kind. It made such a difference. Lady on reception was lovely too. Much better than last clinic I was with, friendly staff.

Only gave 1 star as you can't give 0. Terrible attitude, practice manager Kirsty refused to give me her name (I had to phone back get her name from someone else), showed 0 empathy, was flippant saying we have 10,000 patients, we can't call them all, I didn't ask her to? This is not a one off issue, the practice have failed in their duty of care as far as we are concerned causing problems individually for several of my family! I don't understand how they can get away with such.

Booking an appointment is close to impossible. They have an online booking system called askmygp which on paper is opened for an hour 4 days a week but closes under 10 mins. Reason given is slots are filled which is unacceptable. If you phone them the receptionists are not friendly at all. Only solace is if you managed to get through to a GP then the experience is better. I hope they address the public concerns. If you look at the overall rating it's a good reflection of the service provided.

AskmyGP service now available for a whole 27 minutes per week! Absolutely ridiculous.
Telephone services abominable.
The whole organisation of the surgery needs a complete restart .

Great staff, but just not enough staff.
Very difficult to get an appointment, and the ask my GP online function only give you a few minutes in the morning to bring something up.
I feel like this surgery is very understaffed for the amount of people living in pontarddulais.

My experience with the surgery is they are extremely unprofessional the doctor Andrew Knight to be exact! He’s a clearly uneducated doctors, my son has been on medication for 2 years prior to his mother moving him to this GP surgery this year, I rang up & asked for prescription which was given, My son mother decided to go and make an appointment & unfortunately had Dr Knight, my ex partner is known for her emotional and exaggerated behaviour and Dr knight either fell for this behaviour or is just as bad as her, Dr Knight in his words examined my son and came to conclusion he did not need this medication. Upon speaking to doctor knight after my ex partner give me a copy of the doctors report where this stated I give my son medication on my verbal account, absolutely disgusting thing to say, when he knew full well my son been back and forth seeing GPs because even his own mother had taken him for this reason in past, reason my ex took my son this time & made allegations is because my wife went to collect my son prescription and my ex is very jealous of her! Doctor knight preceded to tell me on the phone, my son was not weighed but told me that he was on the high end of the scale, but he was not concerned because of his age, to my confusion how would he knows this information if he hadn’t weighed my son???! I knew the doctor was lying to me because my son had told me that day he was weighed soon he entered the room, and that DR knights examining was only poking his belly, despite the issue being his bad breath, he did not even look in his mouth! My ex partner is not allowed to show our son crying or upset which will cause him distress once I explained this he told me she was not upset but write it on his report! Dr knight is clearly a biased GP and will put children and patients at risk just to make another parent look bad! I will say if this doctor continues with this behaviour towards me when I attend the surgery with my son I will take the matter up with the health board & ask for a full investigation to be made against him! And he likes to phone the other parent telling them what gets discussed on the phone and making a joke about it. Never in my life have I dealt with such unprofessional behaviour from a doctors surgery before.

Would give zero stars if I could. Receptionists act like they know just as much as the doctors and act personally offended when you need an appointment as if you aren’t calling a gp surgery, they are constantly rude for no reason. They claim how busy they are but no matter what time you go into the surgery they are sitting around chatting to each other. Two separate doctors lied to me, one lied about me needing to make a referral over the phone myself saying he couldn’t do it (I have anxiety and am disabled so it causes extreme stress to do it myself) I contact them again via askmygp and another doctor made the referral for me without any questions. The other (Dr. Mortimer) told me that there was no medication to help manage my anxiety (I then asked my mother who is a mental health nurse and she listed five off the top of her head), same as the other situation, another doctor then prescribed me medication for my anxiety. Askmygp barely works and isn’t open for longer than like ten minutes and for someone who is unable to make phone calls this really screws me over constantly.

Edit: I called right after posting this and have currently been on hold for over an hour with only four people ahead of me, I had my partner call in case and it also said there was four people ahead of them. I can’t even at this point.