About Us > What People Think of Us
We always try to provide the best service possible, but there may be a time when you feel that this has not happened.
Our aim is to provide the best possible quality of care within the limits of the financial constraints imposed by the NHS. To ensure that the practice maintains its high standards of service and care, the surgery undertakes surveys with patients visiting the surgery. Your participation in these surveys is invaluable as the results are used as part of our service review process. Any ideas, concerns and suggestions are all recorded and evaluated.If you have any complaints or comments, please contact the Practice Manager.
Read or publish comments about our practice on the NHS.UK website.
Patient article on Dordon Practice Appointments
They’re not perfect but they ARE trying their best.
When you’re not well you want to be able to see your doctor as soon as possible. When you’re in pain you want something to take it away. When you’re worried about your health you want to talk to someone who will put your mind at rest. These are the things we have all grown up with and when we think that they’re no longer there we can get frustrated and angry… and so did I.
I have been a Polesworth resident for a few years and, as I have grown older, my need to see a doctor has correspondingly increased (but, I’m happy to say, not by too much at present!) Like you, I have noticed that things are not quite the same at the Dordon Practice as they used to be before COVID.
Rather than accept that this was how things have to be, I joined the Dordon Practice Patient Panel to try and understand what the problems were and, whether I could be part of sorting them out. I’ve been attending the Group regularly for some time and have had my eyes opened. My first task was to look up what the word “patient” actually means in the Oxford Dictionary. This was ”able to accept or tolerate delays, problems or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious” That’s me told then!
Next I did some research with the Practices permission of their records and I’ve put together some truthful information about your (and my) main areas of concern to try and help you make up your mind if the Practice is really as bad as you think it is. This time the topic is:
“I can’t get to see a/my doctor when I want to”:
The Practice currently has 5 Doctors. Each works a minimum of 10 hours per day with a 30 minute lunch break. In their 10 hour day they hold 10 minute,” face to face” consultation slots each so you will see that in any day this equals approximately 57 per doctor, 170 appointments total, but what about the telephone call backs, prescription reviews and any necessary home visits? When do these get done?
I studied the Practice’s records for a typical month and found that it had 8,244 requests for appointments of which 3,245 were face to face (aprox 40%). 4554 of the months appointments were on the same day (aprox 55%) and 3726 (aprox 45%) were with a doctor. There were 21 working days in that month and if we do a simple calculation (21 x 57 x 3= 3570) we can see that, with the other demands on their time that I’ve mentioned, they are stretched to breaking point! It’s worth pointing out, however, that despite this, the Practices figures are significantly better than those of Kingsbury, Coleshill and Atherstone which I have also seen.
The Practice now has 13,000 patients compared with……before COVID. The only NHS “patient to doctor ratio” that I can find is quite old and is 1 doctor per 3000 patients. The Practice has recognised that, with only 3 doctors this doesn’t stack up. It has therefore recruited 2 additional doctors and 2 paramedics, who are under training to prescribe medicine so there is every reason to believe that things will improve in the near future….until the impact caused by the significant number of present and future new builds in the village and surroundings, when things will have to be looked at again, and so it goes on!
I hope that this note from a fellow patient will reassure you that things are happening at the Practice to increase its ability to respond to your needs. Neither the partners nor the staff are content to let things lie and are taking active steps to reinforce what the statistics are already showing which is that, whatever its faults, it’s still the best Practice in the area for patient response. Something for us to ponder the next time we are waiting on the phone, which brings me nicely to my next topic which will be:
“No one answers the phone I’m in a queue for ages”
Until next time, stay well.
The” patient” Patient.