Northgate Medical Practice

My experience is that - once you get to see them - all the staff are friendly and helpful. The problem lies at reception, particularly one or two rather unpleasant women who seem to enjoy making life difficult for the patients. It’s not the patients’ fault that they have to wait such a long time to speak to anyone if they won’t allow appointments to be made online, like most other surgeries. If they improved their technology, they’d need to field fewer calls. Lastly, they need to stop writing letters when a call or - even better - an email would be faster and less expensive. Better management all round is needed.

We've been using Northgate Medical for the past 10 years and in that time we've been quite happy with the practice, when we get to see our actual GP. However, that is the primary issue, getting to see your GP is almost impossible. Whilst COVID-19 has exasperated this, this problem has been ongoing and has only gotten worse, especially in the last 4 years. The GPs and nurses have always been fantastic, but being able to have regular consultations with the same GP significantly improves care. But with waiting times often well over 2 weeks (even before COVID-19) only to end up being seen by the nurse practitioner has resulted in months of delays when I should have been directly refered to a dermatologist. Now, why have I given Northgate Medical only two stars. Well, much like others have pointed out this is predominantly due to the awefull reception. I'm sure they have to deal with difficult people on a day to day basis. However, the majority of people contacting the practice are doing so for medical reasons. Such as when I had what I thought may be appendicitis or a kidney stone and was rudely brushed off. I ended up having to get my parents to contact the practice again on my behalf due to being incapacitated due to the pain and even then was only given an appointment for the following week. I absolutely dread having to contact this practice as the reception simply refuse to listen and often make mistakes with scheduling appointments. In the last three appointments they have either given me the wrong time or double booked a room and as others have stated they just don't seem to care, not a drop of empathy is provided. Frankly they are insult to the care and hard work provided by the nurses and clinicians, as they are almost always the first experience patients have when dealing with this practice.

Shockingly bad surgery and mainly down to the administration staff, very rude and not in the slightest understanding. Needed to find out about repeat prescriptions and was hampered by one of the rudest people ive ever encountered, totally disregarded the fact I was new to the whole repeat prescription procedure and spoke to me like I was a child ! Having worked it out for myself and ordering repeat prescription online from the surgery website ( trying to be sensible and not vista the surgery unnecessarily ) over a week later and im still waiting ? Will be running out off tablets that are important i don't stop taking ??

I dread trying to contact the surgery. Either the queue on the phone is very long or the person who answers doesn't know the answer to my query. Through no fault of their own. They request blood tests with no explanation as one example of the poor quality of communication with patients

Lovely new GP, reviewed over the phone, then arranged video consult. referral to nurse for an asthma review , already done. very happy with my care and treatment plan. Especially at this odd time. Thank you Northagte