Charlotte Keel Medical Practice - Ratings and reviews
Reviews
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Review titled Rubbish service
Rated 2 stars out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 02 April 2024
I have tried to call every day this week and have not once been able to get threw via phone. Constantly says busy or just beeps and hangs up. This is causing me so much frustration
Visited April 2024
Review titled Charlotte Keel Medical Practice
Replied on 03 April 2024
Dear patient, Thanks so much for taking the time to raise your concerns. I'm so sorry you have found it difficult to get in touch with us. We have noted from our call stats and the feedback received that our lines are busier than ever and even with a full complement of Reception staff, the demand is still more than we are able to manage. To try and manage this, we have a couple of things we are asking patients to do. Firstly, if possible, please use our online access. You can access this through our website 'contact us online' from 8am -3.30pm each day. (This sometimes closes slightly earlier if we reach capacity for safe working earlier in the day.) Each online access request will get a response within 2 working days. The more people that use online access who are able to, will mean that the phone lines are less busy for those who don't have online access. Secondly, we ask for your continued patience whilst we change over our phone system. This is likely to happen in May or June. There will be a function on there to press for a callback so you don't have to wait on the phone and you will get a callback when you reach the top of the queue. The system will also have more capacity so it is less likely to get an engaged tone. Thank you again for contacting us and I hope this goes some way to assuring you that we are trying to improve this for patients. Please do contact us again if you have any further issues and we will always investigate them. Regards Hayley Fisher Practice Manager
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Review titled Upsetting experience
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 12 February 2024
A 111 out-of-hours nurse booked me a telephone doctor appointment with Charlotte Keel for 9am, making a note to say that I was in a lot of pain with a serious infection that was not responding to antibiotics. Instead of the phone call, I got a text telling me that someone would review my case and would send me another text later that day telling me the outcome (so, no actual conversation – just a text, which you never have the option of replying to). I was in so much pain and so desperate to speak to an actual doctor that I went to the emergency dept. The emergency dept receptionist rang Charlotte Keel to find out why my appointment had not been honoured, and the call handler told him that I knew perfectly well that I had a phone call with a doctor booked for later that day. This was a total lie. It meant that I was treated like a malingerer, asked to leave the emergency dept, and felt completely humiliated. When I did finally get a call from the surgery much later, my phone rang twice and then the call was ended by Charlotte Keel, before I'd had a chance to answer. Why are patients treated like this? The NHS may be underfunded but we are human beings.
Visited February 2024
Review titled Charlotte Keel Medical Practice
Replied on 03 April 2024
Dear patient, Thank you for taking the time to raise your concerns. I am so sorry for the distressing situation you found yourself in. I can imagine it was incredibly frustrating. To address your issues, I have looked at the process that was followed to identify what went wrong and how we can avoid anything similar happening in future. Firstly, we have communicated frequently with 111 to advise them not to give time appointments as we do not have them; these are extras that we treat as urgent on the day. It was unfortunate that they promised you a time in these circumstances as this was bound to cause frustration when it was not possible for us to meet your expectation. The process should be that 111 advise that someone from the Practice will be in touch to arrange an appointment. When we receive that request, we then add it to the urgent list and text the patient to advise it is being reviewed and someone will be in touch. I’m sorry if this was not clear from our communications. I understand that you felt you desperately needed to speak to a GP, however we get approximately 250 contacts a day from people who need an urgent call. The GP reviews them all and prioritises the ones with the most urgent clinical need. I don’t know what other cases we had on the day; however it may have been that we had a high number of clinically urgent calls to make, and they were done when it was possible to do them. I’m sorry you felt it was not quick enough. However, it is important to note that we are not an urgent care service. Getting a same day call back for an issue is as urgent as we can be due to the daily routine care we also have to provide to patients. With regard to the receptionist saying that you ‘knew’ that you had a call. I’m so sorry this left you feeling humiliated, though I truly believe there has been a miscommunication. The receptionist would have seen a text had been sent advising that your case would be reviewed and an outcome would be sent over and I believe they have made a presumption from that message. We will look at the wording of the text to make sure it is clear you will get an outcome the same day. I’m also very sorry that the phone did not ring enough for you to answer. I will feed this back to the GP team to ask them to hold on a it longer. Once again, thank you so much for taking the time to contact us and I am truly sorry you had a negative experience. I hope this response goes some way to alleviating your upset. Regards Hayley
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Review titled Helpful reception staff
Rated 5 stars out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 31 January 2024
The staff in reception were extremely helpful and accommodating when I went into the practice. Can be hard to get an appointment but no worse than anywhere else I’ve gone to in Bristol
Visited January 2024
Review titled Charlotte Keel Medical Practice
Replied on 06 February 2024
Dear patient, Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on our service. We are so glad to hear that our reception staff were helpful. We understand it is difficult to get an appointment at present and we are looking at ways we can improve this for our patients. I will pass on your feedback to our reception team/ Thank you, Hayley Fisher Practice Manager
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Review titled Really muggled up appointments system
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 21 November 2023
It’s really stressful to get an appointment of the flexiblity you need and also if you ask f2f appointment the doctor gives you an appointment for tel consultation they got zero sympathy to the symptoms of the patient. It’s really stressful that their receptionist haven’t got a capability to make appointment themselves, because when they are the first point of contact they would understand the patient problems much better than the gp who will just look on notes and give an appointment for telephone consultation when there is a chest pain and short of breath the patient has. It is ridiculous, i mean the receptionist should be the one who can make an appointment and the doctor who looks at the notes and makes appointment, they can see the more patient in mean time where receptionist can do their job, it is reality messed up how they deal with appointments, The doctor just leaves a text with saying they gonna get a telephone consultation with their flexibility so we don’t have to negotiate or anything. As i said this practice has zero empathy to patients I
Visited November 2023
Review titled Charlotte Keel Medical Practice
Replied on 06 February 2024
Dear patient, Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback. I am sorry you have had difficulty in making an appointment with us. Unfortunately, we were experiencing, and continue to experience, clinical staff shortages. This has resulted in us having to alter our access policy to ensure we are working safely. Previously, patients were able to call and obtain appointments or calls on a first come/first served basis rather than based on clinical need. Waits for face-to-face appointments were 3- 4 weeks long however phone calls would usually be sooner. Unfortunately, in addition to clinical shortages across the UK, the patient demand has increased significantly. On average per day, we receive approximately 150-300 phone calls, 150-250 people at the desk, 100 online consultation requests and around 200-300 prescription requests a day. We have a finite number of telephone calls and face to face appointments we can offer. Our new booking system involves a GP triaging everything that comes in and decides how long a patient can wait and what they need based on clinical urgency (eg. Telephone call or a face to face consult). This system has been created and approved alongside GP’s and ensures safe working limits and that the most in-need patients are prioritised. This is sadly the reality for the majority of GP Practices due to the clinical shortages, decreases in funding and increase in demand. The average waiting time for a telephone call or appointment is 2-4 weeks across the UK. I am sorry again that you were negatively affected and I hope this helps you understand the reasons behind any difficulty and please be assured we are working very hard to improve this for patients. Thank you, Hayley Fisher Practice Manager
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Review titled The best family practice
Rated 5 stars out of 5
by Myra Johnson - Posted on 05 October 2023
Charlotte Keel has been a huge part of my life. The team are amazing despite the pressure on their time. They all go the extra mile to give you the right care and support, they are compassionate, holistic and very supportive. Always super friendly and approachable and put me at ease. The team were amazing with my son when he had a breakdown during the pandemic and have been so supportive to me. They are such an amazing team and I am delighted to sing their praises.
Visited October 2023
Review titled Charlotte Keel Medical Practice
Replied on 10 October 2023
Dear Myra Johnson, Thank you very much for taking the time to provide feedback on our service. We are so happy to hear that you have found our service to be so positive and helpful. I will make sure to pass this feedback onto the team. Kind regards Hayley Fisher Practice Manager
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Review titled Busy surgery
by alwaysshariff - Posted on 28 August 2023
I had a little blood come out of my penis. I contacted the out of hours service as it was an emergency. They gave me an appointment for the next day after noon. I am disabled and I have very sore back and COPD. I went to the surgery and requested a wheelchair. I was informed that there is no wheelchair. I did not bring my wheelchair as I could not find a carer at such short notice. I met a gent who who is a paramedic I was told; not a doctor. I cannot judge the treatment I was given as this was the first time this happened to me. I do not understand how 7 doctors attend to 17,000 patients. How 2 telephone receptionist attend to all the callers?
Visited August 2023
Provided by Care opinion
Review titled Charlotte Keel Medical Practice
Replied on 10 October 2023
Dear patient, Thank you very much for taking the time to give feedback on our service. My name is Hayley Fisher and I am the Practice Manager. I am sorry to hear of the difficulties you faced when at the health centre. I will pass on your feedback regarding the wheelchair and see if there is anything that can be changed. With the increase in patient demand and the shortage of GP's across the country, we now have several clinical roles in the Practice that are trained to deliver healthcare for certain conditions, such as Paramedics, Physicians Associates, Pharmacists etc. This means that the GP's can see the patients who have illnesses that ONLY a GP can deal with and means that GP appointments are more accessible to those that need them the most. We have a team of 13 GP's who work part time and full time in addition to the other clinical roles in the Practice. We also have a team of Health Navigators, answering calls in the back office as well as dealing with queries at reception. We are currently training up new staff as well to help at busy times. # Thanks again for giving us your feedback, Kind regards Hayley Fisher Practice Manager
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Review titled Rubbish
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 05 July 2023
Charlotte Keel have a really annoying practice of giving you a whole day appointment window when you book a telephone consultation. This is annoying enough in itself - it means you have to be on the end of the phone waiting for a call all day, which means informing work that I can't do any important meetings for a full day. The problem must be even worse for people who do jobs where they can't just nip out for a call at a moment's notice. However, this became even more annoying this week when they didn't ring me during my ten-hour window. I got a text from the GP saying that they'd ring me the next day, but they never did. When I rang the reception asking what had happened to my appointment, I had to wait half an hour to even get through to someone. Once I finally did get through to someone, they told me I'd been rung on the initial day of the appointment (I had no missed call and hadn't been out of signal range, so I don't think so). They then offered me another appointment in two weeks' time. I've already waited two-three weeks for the first appointment, so to say I'm annoyed is an understatement. It shouldn't be on me to have to wait extra weeks based on their error in not calling me back like they said they would. I also second what other reviewers say about having to queue for ages at the surgery and wait forever to get through on the phone. No matter what time of day I ring, I always end up waiting around 30 minutes to get through. Clearly the staff are stretched thin and it's a saddening reminder of the state of our NHS every time I contact the surgery. I haven't been hugely impressed by the surgery in general, but this poor experience is meaning I'm going to look to register elsewhere.
Visited July 2023
Review titled Charlotte Keel Medical Practice
Replied on 17 July 2023
Dear Patient, Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback. My name is Hayley Fisher and I am the Practice Manager at Charlotte Keel Medical Practice. I am very sorry you had a negative experience when trying to book an appointment with us. I can understand how frustrating it must have been not to receive the call when expected, and then having to wait in a queue to try and rebook, and then having to wait again for the next appointment. We have been dealing with a shortage of appointments and an increase in demand for some time, and we are working on making the patient journey smoother with several quality improvement projects. We hope patients start to feel the benefit of this work in the future. In the meantime, the best way to contact us to avoid the phone queue is by using Patient Triage on our website. This facility enables patients to state their issues and treatment needs. These are sent electronically to our Duty GP who will assess and then advise the Health Navigation what the most appropriate appointment and timeframe is. Our Health Navigation team will then contact the patient to book the telephone call. If it is deemed clinically urgent by the Duty GP, then the patient will receive a call the same day. I would be happy to talk further with you about the issues you have faced. If you would like to arrange this, please submit a Patient Triage on our website and submit an admin query asking me to call. Thanks again for providing feedback, Kind regards Hayley Fisher Practice Manager
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Review titled High standards of care
Rated 5 stars out of 5
by Joanne - Posted on 09 June 2023
I am very impressed with the treatment I have received from the surgery for my medical treatment. I was seen to straight away and the communication between the doctors and myself was excellent. The doctors are kind, friendly and knowledgable and made me feel at ease with my condition. I cannot fault the standard of care I have received and am very thankful to them for their quick, professional and caring approach. I would absolutely recommend this surgery.
Visited June 2023
Review titled Charlotte Keel Medical Practice
Replied on 17 July 2023
Dear Joanne, Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We are glad you were happy with your care while seeing our clinician. We will pass the feedback to our team, Kind regards Hayley Fisher, Practice Manager
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Review titled Wonderful staff
Rated 4 stars out of 5
by Nicola Strange - Posted on 12 October 2023
The reception staff are always extremely kind and understanding on the phone. The doctors and nurses are always great
Visited June 2023
Review titled Charlotte Keel Medical Practice
Replied on 24 October 2023
Dear Nicola, Thank you so much for taking the time to provide feedback on our service. We are so glad our staff have been kind and understanding and that you are happy with our clinicians! I will pass this feedback onto our team. Best wishes Hayley Fisher Practice Manager
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Review titled Very difficult to speak to someone, long waits
Rated 2 stars out of 5
by Daniel Grassian - Posted on 26 April 2023
I know the NHS is really struggling and it is very apparent at this GP surgery. In person, you have to wait a minimum of 30 minutes to speak to the front desk. On the phone, it's similar. My wife and I are patients and both have had many issues. On one occasion, she had an appointment but when she came they said it had been incorrectly scheduled for the following day. Another time she was told to schedule a test, came for said test, and then was told they couldn't actually give her the test. I have been trying to get my medical records from the surgery for over a week and keep calling, filling in e-consults, everyone just tells me to do something I've already done (sending me links to forms I've already filled out), but no one will get me my records. It feels like a full-time job just trying to speak with someone at this surgery, absolutely exhausting.
Visited April 2023
Review titled Charlotte Keel Medical Practice
Replied on 26 April 2023
Dear Daniel Grassian I am sorry that you are having problems with our surgery and the long waits. However we do have a website that you can use to access medical and admin help. Normal time scales for getting your personal data is between 30/40 working days. On the front page there is a button 'contact us on line' that will mean you don't need to queue for non urgent help. I am sorry that you have had problems with tests and appointments. To allow me to investigate these problems could you give me more details via the email below. Thank you, Jane Isaac Practice manager. charlottekeelmedicalpractice@nhs.net