Green Practice - Stockbridge Health Centre

I get bloods monthly and find the nurse Linda really lacks good patient social skills. She is very much a come in

I was absolutely disgusted by the rudeness and the way we were treated by the lady at your front desk. I won't step foot back in your practice ever again after the way she spoke to us. When you have employees in an environment where they are surrounded with sick or hurt people, they need to learn how to show empathy and warmth. Not rudeness and incompetence. She was not only rude to myself and my daughter, but we observed her dismiss another gentleman who was clearly needing guidance and help. As a practitioner myself I would only employ those who enhanced my practice and made my patients feel welcome. In my opinion your receptionist needs to retire and the lovely young girl at the back of the office taking the phone calls needs to be at the front reception greeting your patients. Your nurse was lovely and very efficient but unfortunately the damage was done after the first ten minutes of being in your practice. Huge shame.

I registered in April 2023 and was unlucky to have had various health complaints. So I’ve had a lot of contact with this practice recently, and I’ve been really impressed on balance. I think they are doing a great job.

There are some really wonderful doctors here, and an outstanding nurse practitioner who I would trust with absolutely anything. But the practice continues to have a significant problem with its reception. I of course understand the pressure all GP practices are under, and there are also some reception staff who can be really helpful and who I hugely appreciate (one young woman in particular is brilliant). However, the practice has set up reception to be the first gatekeeper to medical services and information, including important biopsy results. If this is how the practice wants to organize patient care it is essential *ALL* receptionists are properly trained and also empathetic, understanding how anxious patients may be and that the issues they are dealing with may be deeply traumatic. At the least, the job of reception staff is surely to help patients get access to what they need. Instead, it feels like the reverse: there seems to be a culture at reception where staff feel their job is to block patient access. They seem to have very little communication training, and often respond inappropriately to inquiries and are abrupt and unsympathetic to the point of rudeness. This of course affects patient confidence and experience, but my concern is with patient care: I certainly feel I am not getting access to the people and information I need to support my medical needs, solely because of the discretion of untrained, non-medical personnel who are entirely unconnected with my care. This is a real issue for the Green Practice, as the other reviews here attest, and something I would suggest needs urgent attention.

I enjoyed a much happier experience with the Green Practice than some of the other reviewers. I had to register with the practice at short notice. Fiona Sanders, the Lead Receptionist, was exceptional, displaying great empathy and making sure I was registered me promptly. She fitted me in with Dr Vipond later the same day. Again, Dr Vipond was fabulous and clear about the support the practice can provide.In the course of registering, I observed around ten patients arriving for appointments. They were dealt with promptly and in one case the patient hadn’t even managed to sit down. Compared to my previous practice this was exceptional.Thank you to the Green Practice for your support.

Every time I call to speak with a doctor I get a massive barrier through the receptionist on the phone, telling me what to do, even if that contradicts what I've been said in the pharmacy or midwife, for example. I always get anxious when speaking with them on the phone as I feel they don't want to listen or care and I'm just wasting their time, they show no empathy at all and they are the rudest people I've had to deal with in a doctor's centre, always willing to hang up my call very soon even if I have another question to ask after waiting for a while to get my call answered.

Great service. Friendly and efficient staff. You are well looked after here

Great doctors, but really unhelpful and rude reception staff. Just the most arrogant, unsympathetic people. They need a complete overhaul of their office. Getting an apology out of them for their mistakes is like blood from a stone.

There are some great GPs, nursing staff, and reception staff. Some have been very helpful and affirming.However, I have had multiple unpleasant conversations with reception staff over the phone who have been inconsiderate, unsympathetic, and rude including cutting in mid-sentence as before I can reach a point.As well as that, I have had issues with their prescription service, especially when things have been marked as urgent.It's almost enough for me to leave and find another service, to be honest. I can understand that times are currently very hard for NHS staff and so I don't blame them as individuals. I think there seems to be some lack of training from management that has made accessing the services frustrating.

When I enquired about possibly registering as a new patient, the receptionist (who seemed extremely annoyed that I had called) asked me if I had a job, because otherwise she wouldn't allow me to register. I informed her employment wasn't a legal requirement for registering for healthcare. I'm not sure which country she thought she was in, maybe USA, but after her interrogation and very unhelpful answers to my questions, I decided not to register because I'd have to deal with that rude behaviour any time I got sick. No thank you.