The manager of a north-east health centre has defended the team after they came under fire amid complaints patients have to wait weeks for an appointment.
Complaints about the recent lack of appointments at Macduff Medical Practice have flooded in via social media, with patients also calling to raise concerns.
At the beginning of April, they posted a statement after team received a bit of a “battering” over social media.
Patients complained of not being able to book an appointment until next month and were told to call 999 if their inquiry was urgent.
Now practice manager Keith Anderson has come out fighting for the team, stressing that particular week had been challenging due to sickness among administrative staff and planned locum GPs.
‘We are not in crisis’
He told us today: “We understand that this results in patient frustration when an immediate appointment is not readily available, but our staff work tirelessly in order to plan and rebook appointments at the earliest opportunity.
“Our administrative team, however, are usually the first point of contact for patient frustrations; and although they are resilient, they do deal with particularly challenging conversations on an all too frequent basis.
“We were somewhat taken by surprise by the comments on social media that there is a perception that we are in crisis.
“We are not in crisis; and in order to set some perspective on what we had achieved this year we took the decision to publish the statistics of our achievements leading up to 31 Mar 22.”
While Mr Anderson said there was a problem with replacing GPs in the region, an issue many practices face, there is only so much they can do.
He added: “We have invested in the training of our team, which is paying dividends and we have fewer people delivering a wider skillset with better outcomes.
“We are actively exploring modern working practices in order to complement that what we need to do; whilst using the opportunity to discard outdated practices.
“We have had staff leave; some of them good people who preferred to work in their ways but now want to take their journeys elsewhere – and we wish them well.
“But the team that we have are fully committed to deliver what is needed and I’m proud to be working with them.”
The system needs to change
Banff and district council candidate Glen Reynolds claimed the recent concerns have highlighted a bigger issue being faced by practices in the region.
He said he has received hundreds of messages from constituents in recent weeks, with many sharing personal experiences from across the region.
He said: “Firstly, nobody in any shape or form, not least myself, is underestimating the incredible work and challenges that anybody involved in the sector has had to endure in recent years.
“That really needs to be flagged up. Everybody recognises that the staff and management are doing all that they possibly can.
“But I think that there is a systemic problem which is corroborated by a lot of the lived experience that I’ve received and that is generally to do with communication.
“There is a democratic deficit in terms of the openness and the transparency regarding the way that the public is being communicated and engaged with.
“The system needs to change.”
He added: “It would be wrong to say that the problems the vast majority of people have alluded to in terms of own lived experience are unique to Macduff. It’s just that at the moment these have been highlighted in Macduff.
“This is a big, big story which I think in a way what’s happening in Macduff is the lens through which many other stories and many individual personal tragedies and circumstances are arising.”
Mr Reynolds has said the Macduff practice has said they are very willing to meet and to discuss concerns of constituents.
