Hi GirlOnBike,
Do you know about Bridge House surgery on Umfreville Road? I'm pretty sure they'd serve the Gardens. They're always overstretched in there like most surgeries, but I find the reception staff to be exceptionally reasonable and the doctors I've seen - my GP is Dr Haas but I've seen a couple - are brilliant.
They're triaging GP patients now? Good grief...
Our surgery now has an interesting policy: book either for the next day or a month in advance. It seems designed to discriminate against people who work for a living - I've never followed through with an appointment I'd wanted to book since they introduced it as it's just too inconvenient, so I guess if the brief is 'get visits down to a minimum' then they are doing a fantastic job :(
At bridge house not only was it impossible to book emergency appointments without a public battle with the very unpleasant triage nurse, I was also unable to book a routine appointment for a week's time. I wasn't allowed to book a month ahead either as they only release appointments first thing in the morning, twice a week and you have to be ringing on speed dial and first through the switchboard to get them.
It was so stressful we started using walk in centres for our son as at least we knew we would get seen. Such a shame as the doctors are wonderful there.
I completely agree with you that I think some surgeries are now so stretched they are using what ever tactics they can to put people off as they are not allowed to refuse new patients. I am sure the triage nurse sees it as her daily duty to get rid of as many 'time wasters' as possible and if they go for good then so much the better. Maybe that's what her brief was.
I can highly recommend Dr Brothers and Dr Ferrar at Bridge House. It can be difficult to get an appointment to fit around working hours but I have never found it a problem to book ahead for smear tests, nurses appointments etc. They have also always offered an appointment for my children when they have urgently needed to be seen. I guess that this surgery - like many in Harringay - have loads of people needing to be seen and so they are always very busy. I would be interested to know what other Harringay surgeries are like as we have been with the Umfreville Road lot since 1999 : )
To take away some of the stress of being on hold when phoning for an appointment, they have recently introduced a new system which tells you where you are in the queue which reduces my blood pressure!
Lawrence House Surgery, if you are in the catchment area, is amazing! After terrible experiences with another local surgery, LHS is brilliant. They are a big group of GPs, it's always easy to get an appointment, they do late surgeries, you can book online and put in repeat prescriptions online. You do often wait a few minutes after your actual appt. time but that is the only problem I have ever encountered. :)
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