Church Avenue Medical Group

There’s quite a number of negative reviews on here, especially about reception. I’ve been with the surgery 5 years and was previously with a surgery in the town centre, there is a noticeable difference with the two in how they deal with patients. The clinical team are great, Hazel and Dr. Colaluca are both lovely clinicians with a great deal of empathy. Dr. Colaluca especially has been really helpful in recent months as I’ve been dealing with some health issues. The reception team, on the whole, are as kind, caring and empathetic. On the odd occasion, they perhaps could seem friendlier, but as a someone in a similar field myself I understand the sheer pressure they are under. No one has ever been rude, impolite or unempathetic. It’s important to remember that often, receptionists are answering back to back phone calls. You don’t know what that last caller was like and it’s surprising quite how abusive and aggressive patients can get with someone who is following policy and procedure. The questions they ask are relevant and simply trying to signpost patients to the best person to help them. Reception also issue my repeat prescriptions incredibly quickly and any queries I’ve had have been dealt with effectively. I have no complaints and it’s clear to me how hard they work alongside other staff in the surgery. The e-consult service is brilliant, I’ve always received help same day if needed or within a suitable time frame. My only feedback? If I do an e-consult, just asking for a routine appointment and give in there a rough time frame for when I’m available, unless there’s a specific reason, asking me to call the surgery back almost defeats the point- I’m avoiding using the phone system so others who only have access to that can use it quicker. But this is so minor. Highly recommend the surgery to anyone!

*EDIT* The pharmacist and the rest of the team promptly rectified the mistake and were very nice and apologetic. Thank you for sorting out the problem, and sorry for my frustration and anger. I easily get stressed because of all the health problems I had in the past 5 years. They have messed up the dose of my regular medication, when I transferred to them from my previous GP in London. They basically halved the dose by mistake, which means I cannot reorder it for 2 months instead of every month. Because of their mistake, I have now been left without medication for 2 days already! I have been trying to sort this out since last Friday, after 2 e-consults and one phone call, they were still insisting they were in the right! Atrocious service and irresponsible people work there. If I feel unwell for not taking my medication, I will sue them. Also, I requested access to my medical records 3 times in 3 months, and they have not granted to me. Very shady. Not to mention that it is impossible to be seen by a doctor, they always fob you off to the advanced practitioners who cannot even make a simple diagnosis and send you home with generic advice (gargle salt water), when the ENT specialist instead made me have a tonsillectomy in 2 weeks!

I have been a patient at this surgery for over 50 years. I am really surprised at some of the reviews that I have read. In all this time I have never had any reason to complain about anyone or anything. In fact I I have always found that they ( receptionists, nurses and doctors) go the extra mile to help patients. I know it is frustrating not to be able to be offered an appointment straight away but this is the case in many surgeries and not solely Church Avenue Medical Group.

Very condescending on the phone with no empathy to any situation I was going through. I usually have good interactions with this GP surgery, but not today. I don't understand why nhs 111 and this GP don't link up well with any communication.

The reception needs to be handled with care due to the callow tendancy to interrupt you so that they can be directly aggressive and say "these calls are recorded" repeatedly. I am giving 2 stars because calls are answered promptly, & as calls are recorded you are at least legally indemnified against that kind of misconduct.