Linthorpe Surgery - Ratings and reviews
Reviews
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Review titled Continuous blocking patients
Rated 2 stars out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 11 November 2022
Rang two days ago,started 17th in the queue. Took 65 minutes to get to 1st in the queue. Rang twice today - 21st and 20th in the queue cut off both times. This is yet another way for this surgery to stop patients seeing or speaking to the doctors. They block patient accessibility in any way they can. They do not want to see patients. If they did they would not still be "working on a solution" for the phone lines. It would have been resolved. Somebody who has to work for a living does not have 60 to 90 minutes to spend in a queue in the hope of speaking to somebody and not being cut off. And unless they have an actual clinical qualification, the "care navigators" cannot know if it is "appropriate" to see a GP or not. It is more than time for this surgery to get its act together and start behaving in an appropriate, professional manner, allow their patients to contact them promptly or reinstate the ability to book online appointments. (That idea will give them nightmares) They need to start treating the patients both with the care they want/need and also with a modicum of respect.
Visited November 2022
Linthorpe Surgery has not yet replied.
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Review titled Terrible
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Louise - Posted on 28 November 2022
I would strongly advise people not to sign up to this practise. You can never get through on the phone (I am currently 19 in the queue at 3pm on a monday), when you've been on hold for an hour you get cut off. The doctors haven't got a clue, my partner is unwell and at one point he was supposed to have the doctor call him weekly to check in and that never happened. I've had to fight to get his mental health seen to and now he's on a waiting list for the access team. All I want to know is how long he's going to be waiting as its already been three months yet I'm probably not going to find out as no doubt this call I am on will get cut off. Trying to get a script is a nightmare. You have to go into the practise as they will not do it over the phone unless you have a disability (which I have explained before that my partner does) so we can't order scripts online or in person. Reception are always snotty. This place needs shutting down. It's not fit for purpose. I see that the practise have replied to some of these reviews. Why is the telephone line still atrocious when you've been getting it sorted out since September? Answer that.
Visited November 2022
Linthorpe Surgery has not yet replied.
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Review titled Poor on all Accounts
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 27 October 2022
Most of the doctors are ill informed and unhelpful (I see a different doctor every time and so have different information and views every time, which is extremely inconsistent), and the chokepoint method of making all lines of communication intentionally difficult to use (Such as disabling e-consult, removing the call queue system, kicking you out of your call if you wait longer than an hour) is appalling. This is clearly due to the backlog, but other Practises in the area have dealt with it far better than Linthorpe surgery. If it was better run and more efficient, I wouldn't have needed all my appointments, and there would have been less of a backlog. I've had 3 appointments in the last month that could have been dealt with via a 10 minute phone appointment rather than booking a full half an hour/full hour slot and wasted everyone's time. Not to mention, the content of most of these appointments felt like random stabs in the dark instead of listening to any information I provided. The health problem I have been dealing with eventually ended up being one of my early assumptions, and we could have avoided 3 whole appointments if it had just been taken more seriously. Consider a different practise.
Visited October 2022
Linthorpe Surgery has not yet replied.
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Review titled tried !!!
Rated 2 stars out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 18 October 2022
Monday 17th phoned, waited till 1st in queue 1 hour call dropped Tuesday 18th phoned, waited till 1st in queue 1.5 hours!!! reached 1st in queue again!! called dropped !!!!! Have tried econsult non available. approximatiley same time same queue position Same Result. There is no alternative !!!!
Visited October 2022
Review titled Linthorpe Surgery
Replied on 21 October 2022
Dear Patient I am very sorry to hear you have had issues in contacting the Practice. We are aware that our current telephone system has a time limit on the queue which is unfortunately cutting patients off. We are currently looking into solutions to this as ideally we would not want patients to wait over an hour to speak to someone but would also not want patients to be cut off after waiting in the queue. I can appreciate this is extremely frustrating for you and I would like to assure you that we are taking all of the feedback regarding the new telephone system seriously and are working with our telephone company to resolve these issues. Thank you for providing your feedback. Stacey Taylor Operational Manager
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Review titled Never answer phones
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Disgruntled patient - Posted on 06 September 2022
I completed an E-consultation as I couldn’t get through to make an appointment on the phone. I received an email the following day telling me that I needed to se a GP face to face. Guess what! I couldn’t get through to make an appointment on the phone. The receptionist service is diabolical and the call queues are ridiculous, you either get cut off or always join the queue at position 24 and have an exceptionally long wait
Visited September 2022
Review titled Linthorpe Surgery
Replied on 22 September 2022
Dear Patient Thank you for your feedback. I am sorry to hear you have been having issues accessing the Practice for an appointment. We were aware of issues with our previous telephone system and have just implemented a new system on 16th September 2022. This system will be able to deal with the demand in a much better way and will allow patients better access. If you do have any further issues please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss. Thank you Stacey Taylor Operational Manager
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Review titled Fed up - so exactly how am I supposed to contact them?
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 26 September 2022
For some time now Linthorpe Surgery has encouraged people to use eConsult so it takes pressure off the phonelines....so I thought. Today when I received my response from the doctor the end said 'this is for advice only and not for getting appointments'. I'd not actually asked for an appointment, so I'm not sure what warranted this comment. Even so, I'd like to say that 'somehow' on most occasions when I have a health concern and use eConsult the surgery does normally insist in a telephone or in person appointment, so that doesn't add up. There is no consistency in their message on how to contact them! I can't spend an hour on the phone at work trying to get through. This is a broken system. The only way I can get a regular non-urgent appointment is by waiting for my day off a physically walking into the surgery.....I wonder how long it will be before they ban that as well! This is how people end up at A&E - they can't get to the doctors, so they put off concerning problems until it's acute. I know I am sounding overly dramatic, but that's because elderly relatives of mine are saying they'll not even bother trying to get hold of a doctor now. It's extremely worrying.
Visited September 2022
Review titled Linthorpe Surgery
Replied on 21 October 2022
Dear Patient I am very sorry to hear that you have had conflicting information from our Practice. I would like to discuss this further with you and investigate the issues you have raised. We are aware that we do have an issue with our new telephone system which we are working hard to resolve but I would like to discuss some of the communication issues you have raised. If you would like to contact me via the Practice email address and we can arrange a time for me to contact you directly if you would like to discuss this further. Thank you Stacey Taylor Operational Manager
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Review titled Contacting the surgery
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 15 September 2022
Listening to the lengthy message is ridiculous, then it connects you onto the phone system, another lengthy wait and then the phone goes dead as there are too many callers. You try this a couple of times and give up. So you go to fill an e-consult in, its after 1 o'clock and the service is not available, so you email them to find their email system is not available for queries from you the general public. How are you supposed to get in touch!!! Stop hiding behind covid and get your system sorted whoever is in charge of communications you are doing a pitiful job
Visited September 2022
Review titled Linthorpe Surgery
Replied on 22 September 2022
Dear Patient Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. I am sorry to hear that you have had difficulty getting in contact with the Practice to make an appointment. We were aware there were issues with our previous telephone system and we have just recently implemented a new system as of 16th September 2022. The new system is able to deal with the demand on the Practice in a better way than the previous system. We have also removed the long telephone greeting message to allow you to access the Practice sooner. I do hope that this improves your contact with us in the future but if you do have any issues please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you Stacey Taylor Operational Manager
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Review titled appointment system
Rated 1 star out of 5
by brian hogarth - Posted on 21 September 2022
The supposed new telephone system is a joke unless it has been designed to be deliberately unusable . The previous system actually worked. You either elected to wait to speak to reception or you could request a call back which avoided having to hang on to a phone line. This one merely gives you a queue number with no indication of how long that will take to get you there. Yesterday I was stuck at 29 so gave up, Today I have progressed to 26 & have similarly given up. Absolutely appalling. Tried to use the e consult system but that is unavailable.
Visited August 2022
Review titled Linthorpe Surgery
Replied on 21 October 2022
Dear Mr Hogarth I am sorry to hear you have had some difficulties in access the Practice. As you are aware we have changed our telephone system due to feedback from our patients. Unfortunately, we have experienced some teething issues which we are working hard to resolve. Ultimately the new system is a much better system for both patients and the Practice but the set up of the system has taken much longer than we initially expected and I would like to apologise that this has impacted massively on you contacting us. We are aware of the issues and are working on a number of solutions to help make accessing the Practice much better. Thank you for your feedback. Stacey Taylor Operational Manager
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Review titled My own experience
Rated 5 stars out of 5
by BC94 - Posted on 20 July 2022
I contacted Linthorpe surgery by phone and it took a while but I got through (alot quicker than a recent telephone group I tried to contact). The receptionist was polite and professional. I did get to see someone at the surgery who was very caring, easy to talk to and her advice was sound. She also advised me on another problem and whom to see.
Visited July 2022
Review titled Linthorpe Surgery
Replied on 22 September 2022
Dear Patient Thank you very much for your feedback. It is very nice to hear you had a good experience when contacting the Practice. I will feed this back to the staff members involved. Thank you Stacey Taylor Operational Manager
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Review titled The worst practice in Middlesbrough. They ruined my life.
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 05 May 2022
The practice stopped my Arthritis medication and left me unable to look after myself and unable to work. I live by myself, so there is nobody to help me. I been phoning this practice for past 2 weeks and can't get through. I send them a letter by econsult and doctor supposed to get in touch with me. Nobody got in touch they just send me a sick note, no medication. I can't get better without my tablets. Today is Thursday I will have to wait till Saturday to go to an A and E. Saturday is when I'm getting payed and I be able to get a taxi. I will have less money to pay my bills. I only work part time because of my disability. People who answer the phone are rude and they speak to you like you are an idiot. I fell down and damaged my wrist . I phoned this practice asking for help only to be told to get a bus to Redcar (hospital). I was unable to get dress or do anything else so I didn't go. For past 10 years I been ill and ignored by this practice. I asked to see a specialist only to be told by the doctor to go to Poland and see a specialist in there. Last time I was in Poland is when I was 13 years old, 39 years ago. My mother had the same experience with this practice. She past away 2 years ago, she doesn't have to suffer any more. My mum used to come to my house after seeing the doctor she was crying her eyes out because the way she was treated by this practice.
Visited May 2022
Linthorpe Surgery has not yet replied.