PARENTS are upset over the changes made to the appointment system their local GP surgery.
The Pinn Medical Centre, Love Lane, Pinner, has made some alterations to the system of booking emergency appointments. You can no longer ring on the day and book a same day emergency appointment, instead you are advised to bring the patient to the centre and wait for the next available appointment.
Mothers who have had ill children have told the Observer they are unhappy with the new system as they have had sometimes had to wait hours for an appointment.
Ana Minchin, 45, of Tewkesbury Road, Pinner, said her son, Josh, fell ill on a Sunday and she had to take him in the following day to wait for an appointment.
Ana, whose two sons, Josh, seven, and nine year-old Jack, both attend West lodge Primary School in Pinner, said: “I went in and waited for over two and a half hours. It was so frustrating, I was worried about my son, I thought he had a urine infection. I didn’t want him sat there for two and a half hours surrounded by sick people.”
Mother-of-two Patti Alvarez, from Pinner, said: “It is a nightmare. Everyone is going crazy over the changes.
“As a mother you do not want to be sat in a waiting room full of sick people with your ill child. Booking the emergency appointments prevented us having to wait hours in the surgery to be seen.”
Sam Pinner, 41, from Pinner, added: “It so silly. I had to wait hours the first time I went, the second time wasn’t so bad, but I just can’t understand why they changed it. The old system was fine and worked well.”
The centre serves a population of nearly 20,000 patients with a team of four GP partners, five associate GPs, nurses a practice manager and administrative staff.
Doctor Amol Kelshiker said the recent changes to the system were due to the results of a patient survey it carried out, though Ana said she and other mothers had not seen a survey.
He said: “We provide more appointments that any other practice in Harrow. The feedback from the survey was that patients wanted more advance appointments, so we have made it more possible for patients to pre-book.
“Of course, we will never refuse to see any patient as an emergency, but what is not possible is if a patient rings up on the day and asks to see a doctor at a specific time. If the matter is urgent they should bring the patient into the surgery straight away and we will see them as soon as we can.”
Practice manager Hilary Scott added: “The appointments have not been reduced in any way we are just breaking down the nature of the emergency.”
