The Ridge Medical Pract.
Cousen Road, Great Horton, Bradford, West Yorkshire, BD7 3JXContact details and opening times
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Reviews
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Review titled Bad practice
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Mark o connor - Posted on 11 October 2024
In desperate need of my inhaler been told I need to see my doctor seen the doctor only the day after been told I can have them now I’ve been told to book an appointment for an asthma review I don’t have asthma I have chronic copd no appointments are available in October so what it sound like to me is I can not any inhaler s till I get to see them I borrows an inhaler from a family member till I got sorted I’ve given that back thinking I was getting mine looks like I am not and if god for bid if anything happens to me due lack of inhaler s
Visited October 2024
Review titled The Ridge Medical Pract.
Replied on 14 October 2024
Good Afternoon Mark We are very sorry to hear of your poor experience at our Practice last week, this is not how we would expect our team to communicate with our patients. We appreciate your feedback and the opportunity to explain, apologise and put things right for you. We have investigated the matter this morning to establish what happened, where things went wrong, how we can quickly remedy the matter and what lessons we can take forward and learn from. It seems that when you contacted us about your repeat medications last week, your annual review for a long-term condition and related medication review was due and therefore your medications needed to be requested in a different way, to ensure that your review was not overlooked. This is standard procedure for all patients who have medications placed on repeat prescriptions, to ensure that we regularly review our patients' health and the effectiveness of long-term treatments. These reviews take a little longer than a standard GP appointment time allows for and are usually carried out by a Nurse with specialist training, or another suitably qualified member of the team, in a planned appointment for which reminders are usually set up on our clinical system. Even though you did see a GP last week, they would not ordinarily update a medication review at the same time as seeing a patient for an acute, booked on the day, appointment. However, we appreciate your frustration about the poor communication about this and agree that we should have managed this differently for you. When you spoke to a Care Navigator and explained your lack of medications, they did act accordingly, and an urgent message was sent to the appropriate team to ensure that you were able to collect your medications from the pharmacy before the weekend began. How well that was explained to you though does seem to be in question, especially as we can see that there was indeed an incorrect message sent to you about your long-term condition and no message was sent back to inform you that your prescription was waiting for you at the pharmacy. This poor communication is not in line with our usual procedures and that has been addressed with the relevant teams, this morning, to prevent the same happening in future. One of our Care Navigation leadership team has contacted you directly this morning and checked in to establish that you are now in receipt of all the correct medications you require and that suitable follow up appointments have been arranged and communicated to you. Once again, we are sorry about this poor communication and the added distress the situation put on you, we will certainly do better next time. We wish you well and look forward to caring for you again in the future. Regards Liz Brook Practice Manager
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Review titled A disgrace
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 20 October 2023
Impossible to make an appointment, very unprofessional staff. The security guard very rude and aggressive. An absolute disgrace of a doctor surgery. Can’t get through the phone lines or book an online appointment trying for weeks . Finally go down and met with incompetent staff.
Visited October 2023
Review titled The Ridge Medical Pract.
Replied on 21 October 2023
Hi I am really sorry that you have struggled to get through to us on the phone this week or be able to get an appointment. We do have lots of appointments available every day but sadly the demand for them is still far outstripping the capacity that we have. We get a fixed amount of funding from the government to deliver GP services and that only buys so much capacity and we spend as much as we can on front line staff. Everything is a balance - if we employ more staff to answer phones (which makes it quicker to get through) we have less to spend on Doctors so have less appointments available when you get through. We do our best to balance all these things as best we can and to assess people as best we can to make sure we see those most in need. There are on line consultations available (through Patches via our website) and we try to make some available to book online but its the same issue - not enough capacity to come close to meeting demand. I am sorry that you found our staff unhelpful when you did come in - that should not happen. I'm not quite sure who you saw as we don't have a security guard (only caretakers who wouldn't normally interact with patients) - we are working hard to make sure that patients are looked after well by our staff - but often people blame the receptionists for us not having enough appointments - they can only work with the capacity that we have and once its all used up there is little they can do - though they do try their best. Once again - we're sorry that you found it so hard to get seen - but we are seeing many many people every week! Regards Nick Nurden Business Manager
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Review titled Dreadful unintelligible phone message.
Rated 5 stars out of 5
by Gerald Anderson - Posted on 04 November 2023
Received a message from The Ridge which was left on my answering machine. The message was totally incomprehensible. The caller made no attempt to speak clearly. Consequently you had to write to me.
Visited October 2023
Review titled The Ridge Medical Pract.
Replied on 06 November 2023
Hi Gerald Thanks you for taking the time to feedback to us and I'm sorry that you felt let down by the answerphone message that we left. We have been able to look into your record and see who will have called you and have raised with them the importance of speaking as clearly as possible. However, in general I would say that we do not leave specific answerphone messages as we cannot be sure that this would be confidential to you so we would tend to only leave a very generic message such as “This is a call from The Ridge Medical Practice, sorry we haven’t been able to speak to you today, nothing to be concerned about and we will try you again later.” to ensure that we firstly do not break confidentiality and secondly to not worry a patient when the issue is non urgent and they may not be able to speak to us for a while. Please, in future, if you have feedback about our service that will help us improve please do speak to one of our managers when you are in the practice and we will always take this on board and try to do better - and it can really help to hear this first hand from you - rather than trying to really understand what has happened from a web post. Again - apologies that you feel let down by us this time and I hope we can do better next time. Regards Nick Nurden Business Manager
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Review titled Appalling telephone system
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 19 September 2023
On hold today for 36 minutes from 4:25pm listening to a countdown of my position in the queue from number 22 to number 1 - then absolutely nothing - the line went totally dead….!! Appalling in this day and age to treat medical callers in this manner!!
Visited September 2023
Review titled The Ridge Medical Pract.
Replied on 20 September 2023
Hi I am really sorry that you had an issue getting through on the phone. This issue with the phone system does happen just occasionally and we have had it extensively investigated by our system supplier and no fault in the system can be found - it is a relatively new digital system and by far and away the majority of people get through fine, but we do appreciate just how frustrating this can be when you have hung on for so long. Please be assured we are not happy about this and continue to try and find the fault (the latest theory we are working on is that it is related to length of time that you are hold from some mobiles that seem to cut off but that is yet to be confirmed). It may not have helped but there are also other ways to contact the practice - if it is repeat medications required these can be requested on line via SystmOne online or via the NHS app, you can request and e-consultation via Patches (link on our website) which may save you calling. The other issue is that we continue to be significantly overwhelmed with demand. GP practices are paid a fixed amount (set by government) per patient per year to provide your care and that only buys so much clinical time, and we try to spend as much of that on providing clinical care which limits how much we spend on reception time to answer the phones which does at times mean a long wait on the phone - if we reduced this by having more reception staff then the number of available appointments would be reduced! Again - our apologies for the issues that you had trying get through yesterday - we get your frustration - and hope you have more success next time. Kind Regards Nick Nurden Business Manager
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Review titled Administration issue
Rated 4 stars out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 22 June 2023
You get good service from doctors and nurses when you to get an appointment. My issue is that the online records are not complete. On two occasions I have had blood tests the results are not recorded on systonline. I was told by the receptionist that since merger with another surgery there has been a glitch. I originally complained about four months ago about this and it seems their information tech staff are not able to sort this glitch. My records were fine before this merger. It seems the problem is regarding blood test results not being recorded whilst other data is recorded. When is this going to be fixed? I like to see results of tests so that I do not have to ring in and wait an hour on the phone. Thank you
Visited June 2023
Review titled The Ridge Medical Pract.
Replied on 23 June 2023
Hi We are sorry that you having this issue at the current time we understand the frustration it is causing. Unfortunately the cause and the solution to this is totally out of our control and we have been struggling to get this sorted for the last 6 weeks! The issue has been caused following the merge of the former Horton Bank Top practice with the Ridge on the 1st April this year. At the end of April the 2 separate patient databases were merged into a single patient database (the Ridge one) which meant that the practice code for the Horton Bank practice ceased to exist. It was soon identified that this meant that Horton bank patients who accessed their record via the NHS App could no longer get access (as they were linked to the old practice code which no longer existed). The NHS App is a national system run by NHS digital over which individual GP practices have no say and no influence - nor is it a system that we run in any way! We have been chasing them ever since to try and get this issue resolved. We have just this week managed to get them to resolve the issue which now means those patients are now able to access their record again via the NHS APP. However this will mean them deleting the App from their device and reinstalling again from scratch - not ideal but there is nothing we can do to influence a different approach! We have prepared some step-by-step instructions on how to do this and have posted these on our website and today will be sending a text message to all those patients affected with a link to those instructions. Once re-established we will then need to make a manual change on the system that will allow patients to view the historical parts of the record that you wish to see. If you access your records on line via the S1Online system (App or web link to the patient record system supplier) then your access should have been unaffected by the merge process, it is only those that use the NHS App that have been affected. We are really sorry for the inconvenience that you have had - we hope you can be sorted very soon, this has been out of our hands and we have been trying to get it fixed as quickly as possible. Regards Nick Nurden Business Manager
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Review titled Horrible service
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Parveen Akhtar - Posted on 08 May 2023
I have a repeat prescription which I am still waiting for over a month after requesting. Initially I wanted an appointment because blood pressure readings are required for my medication and i do not have the equipment. I was told i could not get an appointment on repeated occasions and eventually did it online after getting hold of the equipment via a pharmacy. Medication did not arrive after two weeks and I phoned up do ask about the delay and was told it would be with you in 48 hours. It has still not arrived after a further 2 weeks and repeated calls telling me it should be with me in the next 48 hours. Disgusting service.
Visited April 2023
Review titled The Ridge Medical Pract.
Replied on 09 May 2023
Hi We are really sorry that you have had so much difficulty in getting your repeat prescription sorted out. Clearly on a public forum we are unable to comment on individual situations and cannot respond specifically without you getting in touch with us. In these situations we do want to understand why there have been issues and to learn from them so would encourage you to get in touch directly with our care navigation team who will look into this, or you could raise it formally via our complaints process which really helps us to learn and improve our service. However - some generic comments re prescriptions - whilst I accept you wanted a blood test as well, in line with NHS guidance we are discouraged from taking repeat prescription requests over the phone as this tends to lead to errors in the issue of medication. Patients have a number of ways of requesting repeats which are far more reliable - you can send in or pop your right hand side of your previous prescription in to the surgery, you can request this on line (either via the NHS App or using SystmOne online), or you can submit a request for an e-consult via our website - all of which saves the need to ring in at all. With issues like this it would be helpful for us to learn where the issue has occurred - it may have been missed in our system or delayed for some other reason. Sometimes they can get lost between us and the pharmacy (a technical glitch in the NHS spine system) or it could be a pharmacy error or an issue with supply at the pharmacy - so while it may be our mistake it may also be something that is beyond our control. Again, I apologize for the hassle you have had - please get in touch and we will do our best to sort this out quickly for you. In future please do not wait so long before contacting us or your pharmacy to see where the prescription has got to - it should normally be sorted with 48 hours (2 working days) so please get back in touch if it isn't. Kind Regards Nick Nurden Business Manager
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Review titled online system
Rated 1 star out of 5
by Anonymous - Posted on 09 March 2023
I applied to have access to your online system and duly filled in the online form, I did get a link to join however trying to use that link proved impossible. what is the address to get onto the online system, why does it have to be so evasive ?
Visited March 2023
Review titled The Ridge Medical Pract.
Replied on 10 March 2023
Hi We're sorry you have had difficulty get sorted for on-line. We will try to help but not quite sure which system you are trying to connect to - we have a few options! Please do contact the practice and we will help you to get this sorted out. Many of the online systems that we use are run and managed by others (our patient software supplier or NHS digital) so we don't set the registration process up. If you are trying to set up SystmOnline, the direct address for which is this - https://systmonline.tpp-uk.com/ or can be accessed via our website Home - The Ridge Medical Practice Bradford, West Yorkshire and then search “order a prescription”. We have just tested both routes and they are working now. Or it could be the new PATCHs service which is already available for patients to register for but we haven’t made live to accept e-consults yet, 3rd April is the planned date for that, and the patient should see a message from PATCHs to tell them that. This is new software we using from April to do e-consultations replacing the current software we have been using. We recommend the other option of the NHS App, for smartphone users, which is the best all round option to see records, submit e-consultations, order prescriptions and see your Covid Vaccine history as well as lots of other useful features around NHS Advice to patients. There is a link and information about that on our website homepage too. Failing all else, if you are able to visit any of our 3 sites then one of our Care Navigation team will gladly help and how them how to proceed and can of course contact any of our 3rd party colleagues if a technical issue is indeed highlighted. Kind Regards Nick Nurden Business Manager