Senior doctor admits access to GP surgeries needs to improve

Friday, 13 April 2012

By Peter Henn

ONE of North East London’s most senior doctors has admitted a need for improvement in access to GP surgeries in the area.
Dr Ken Aswani, medical director of NHS North East London & The City, said improvements had to be made by the time primary care gets taken over by localised Clinical Commissioning Groups next year.
He was speaking at a meeting of the North East London Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee.
He said: “We need to look at ways in which we can make things better, but we don’t want to be too dogmatic about things – it has to be about listening to the patients.”
Dr Aswani admitted that, in many cases, there were problems for patients who wanted to contact their surgeries, especially if they only had one practitioner.
He said: “We want to improve the patient experience, and we need to pay attention to what people have said.”
The issue of contact was brought up by the chairman of Havering’s health overview & scrutiny committee, Pam Light (Conservative, Harold Wood).
She said: “I’m hearing there are cases where people have to call expensive phone lines, and even then, there’s no answering machine, or call back service.”
Her stance was echoed by Redbridge’s Joyce Ryan (Conservative, Fairlop).
She said: “I’m lucky I’ve got a good surgery, but I hear a lot from people who have to keep calling, and keep calling, and keep calling their surgeries.
“They don’t have time to do that.”

Email: havering@yellowad.co.uk

All content © of Yellow Advertiser unless stated otherwise.

Be the first to comment using the form below.