Streatham Common Group Practice
St. Andrews, Guildersfield Road, London, Greater London, SW16 5LSContact details and opening times
Patient ratings and reviews
Leave a review
Help others by sharing your thoughts and experiences about Streatham Common Group Practice.
Reviews
-
Review titled Poor surgery comms - restricts patient interaction
Rated 2 stars out of 5
by Anonymous patient - Posted on 04 March 2024
Surgery communications appear to be designed to minimise and constrain patient interaction, primarily to reduce surgery workload. I wonder if account has been taken of any patient impact. Some examples - Surgery will communicate with you via one route, but won't accept replies via the same. Eg a text message will be sent by a GP or surgery admin, but to reply/follow up - you must either call and hold for 30-60 minutes or use the website. If you think using the website sounds like a flexible alternate. Think again, as you can only use the website for messages during surgery hours ie you're actively prevented from responding to / sending a message outside of those hours. Responses to website messages can then take several days to arrive. Another example from a colleague who's also registered shows that GPs and Surgery Admin can be disjointed. They requested an appointment for a telephone consultation, and whilst waiting some time for confirmation of date/ time - received a text from the GP asking them to rebook as they'd missed their consultation call at the appointed time. Checked for a missed text or email re an appointment slot and there's nothing. My opinion is that these and other similar examples will undoubtedly impact negatively on healthcare outcomes at least for some patients. My advice - only use this surgery if you're a persistent person by nature. Even then you should be willing to wait longer than you'd normally expect, for any step of your treatment that involves communicating with the surgery.
Visited March 2024
Review titled Streatham Common Group Practice
Replied on 06 March 2024
Dear Patient, Thank you for taking the time to write this feedback, which we will definitely take into consideration when reviewing our services. We appreciate that communication can be difficult and that mixed messages are sometimes sent. We are constantly reviewing our processes to reduce these. Our online consultation and website platforms are decided by the NHS and they have recently instigated a change in the provider which we are hoping will make it easier to submit an online consultation, and this can also now be completed through the NHS app. Regarding two way communication, this is a tricky area. Responses to individual messages return to the sender rather than a generic inbox. For safety reasons we do not wish messages to return to a member of staff who may not be there on that day as this is a clinical risk. Although we ask patients not to return messages that might be dangerous, not all patients understand this and we have previously received urgent clinical information. If this were to go into an individual inbox for a clinician who is on annual leave/other absence this is unsafe. We appreciate this may be inconvenient but we have to make sure the service is safe as a priority. All online communication should be routine and patients are asked to declare this at the point of submission. Urgent issues should be dealt with by phone or 111. We are aware that our phone call times can be long at popular times, or when we are experiencing staff sickness. We are constantly monitoring performance in this area and work hard to keep call times to as short a time as possible. As online communication is non urgent it is then triaged and allocated to an appointment slot for review. The patient is then informed of this time by text or email. We have received feedback that patients sometimes don't get the texts. The surgery receive messages of delivery and these are recorded in the medical record. This situation seems to be outside of our control and we can only apologise. Online communication is only available during surgery opening hours. This is in part due to the sheer volume of requests received and our desire to not discriminate against patients who cannot access online services. These patients are often the most vulnerable or elderly and we wish to preserve equal access for them. This system allows us to allocate a number of appointments to online communication, and allow patients to access availability by the phone. Our patient participation group (PPG) works with us to develop services and improve communication. You may wish to consider joining this group to provide further feedback. Alternatively you are welcome to feedback further via our website. Streatham Common Practice
-
Review titled very difficult to be seen or even replied to
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 29 January 2024
asked for seeing a doctor early December received and email pointing to a message that I would have a phone appointment at the end of December I was not called, I did receive another email with link to message asking for further info, which I sent. next email with linked message said I would be referred for a test did not receive any appointment, checked the NHS app and found a unspecified appointment for me requested by an unspecified GP. Now that appointment is not there, I don't know if there was ever one. The messages now have disappeared from the practice system. I sent another request via their web site, which says they replies withing 2 days, this was 8 days ago, no news. Now I am calling, 48 minutes and counting, I am third in the queue
Visited January 2024
Review titled Streatham Common Group Practice
Replied on 31 January 2024
Hello, we're very sorry to read your review. It seems as though there are a number of things to resolve in your case. Obviously we are unable to do this on this forum. We are very sorry for the delays on the web forms and phones in the last 2 weeks. We have had significant levels of staff sickness that have impacted on our service provision, despite employing temporary staff. We are hoping this will be resolved as soon as possible. Your form should be responded to shortly.
-
Review titled Disappointed
Rated 5 stars out of 5
by David Owens - Posted on 17 October 2023
I phoned yesterday morning 16th October, I spoke to a receptionist and briefly told her my problem. I said in order to save seeing a Doctor a phone appointment would probably be okay. She told me there were no calls I could have today, but to go on the website and fill in the appropriate form. I have always praised the reception for their helpfulness, but my beef today is I wasn't offered an alternative date .
Visited October 2023
Review titled Streatham Common Group Practice
Replied on 21 December 2023
Dear Mr Owens, We are glad that you generally find the reception team to be helpful but apologise that we were unable to help on this occasion. We do offer pre-bookable phone calls though they tend to be booked for a couple of weeks ahead. Our online consultation forms can often be the best way to access help for a non urgent problem, as these are usually dealt with within a week. Please get in touch if you require further clarification on this and ask to speak to the reception team leader.
-
Review titled Terrible Practice
by Yuchao (Louise) Gu - Posted on 22 July 2024
Having never relied on the GP due to having BUPA through my company. I had to use this GP after giving birth to my daughter. After being on hold for a long time, I was told that the GP appointments were gone and that I can get some pain relief. Then I received a text to say that I had an appointment. After speaking to the receptionist, again having to go through the whole wait time process on the phone, the appointment was for an in house pharmacist to call back to see whether I can get some pain relief and the pharmacist will call sometime in the afternoon which means I may not get my pain relief until the next day. The pain relief was for post c-section which is worsening day by day. There was no offer by the GP for wound check for reassurance as they want you to die of sepsis. Also this GP has not called to say they arranged the baby checkup appointment until I threatened to say I want to change GP. The communication has been really poor and I am fed up with this GP. The service used to be really good with knowledgeable reception staff and now we have people don't know what they are doing.
Visited July 2023
Review titled Streatham Common Group Practice
Replied on 23 July 2024
Dear Ms Gu, We are very sorry to read your review. Unfortunately, on the day in question we had reached maximum capacity when we received your call and had stretched services as far as we could with our resources. This was particularly an issue due to the IT outage at then end of last week and it's resultant knock on effects. On receipt of your call, the request was triaged using the information you provided. Following this an appointment was booked for the same day in the afternoon. This was booked with an independent prescribing pharmacist who has access to GPs and can escalate concerns as necessary. We are sorry if the care did not meet your expectations, and we would be happy to discuss this further with you to go through our processes. If you are having continued symptoms please contact us back and we will endeavour to help you. Regarding the baby check up appointment, we book all of our new mothers for post natal and baby checks automatically on receipt of the birth discharge from the hospital or midwifery team. We are sorry that you felt you needed to write this review and we are happy to to go through this in more detail if you have further questions or feedback. If you would like to do this then please contact us via our website and the operations manager will get in touch.
-
Review titled Friendly practice
Rated 4 stars out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 20 January 2023
When entering the reception the staff we helpful and smiled when engaging. They were happy to answer my questions and seemed happy in their workplace.
Visited January 2023
Review titled Streatham Common Group Practice
Replied on 21 December 2023
Dear Patient, Thank you so much for your feedback regarding the reception team. We will pass this on to the staff who will be very encouraged by your kind words.