WENT TO OUR NEW...

... GP practice this morning. We registered pretty much as soon as we moved in, but I needed a new prescription so had to actually go along, in person on this occasion, although from now on prescriptions can just be renewed over the phone or online. It was interesting. The surgery. Itself is quite new and kitted out with the latest technology. I noticed that you find out when it's your turn by checking the big screen where your name appears above the name of the doctor who is seeing you. All well and good, unless you don't want anyone to know your name for any reason, but what it doesn't do is tell you in which of the many consulting room your appointed GP awaits you. It was my first visit, so the time lapse between my name appearing on the screen to me actually arriving at the appropriate room was lengthy to say the least! A small point, but it would help a lot of the room number could be included on the screen. The doctor who saw me today wasn't our named GP (the one who lives in the road behind us) but a pleasant young man who didn't really seem to know what he was doing. He informed me that he was new (he'd been there three months, so not THAT new), managed after about ten minutes to get my prescription to print, stuck me with a needle for good luck and to avoid flu and then dismissed me without the prescription that I'd gone in for, DESPITE, I might add, the fact that I actually asked him about the procedure regarding the prescription and him telling me the receptionist would give it to me. I thought it was odd, because it had just plopped off the printer in the consulting room where we were sitting, but, never one to argue, I dutifully reported back to the receptionist, who, when I explained the situation, threw her hands up in frustration, asked me what he was playing about at and threatened him with serious harm, before storming off to retrieve the prescription and presumably to give the new doctor a bit of a clip round the ear. It might be worth pointing out that during the last twelve months all the doctors in that surgery have changed. I'm not sure what happened to all the previous staff, but I know for a fact, that the last doctor died. Hmmmmm...