Anyone experiencing even greater issues securing a GP appointment with Tessa Jowell GP practice?

[trinidad]

Hello all,

I hope all is well? I had surgery recently and need more time to rest before returning today. The current fit note from the hospital expires on 7th February. I logged onto the evergreen GP app, and was really shocked to see by 8:11am, all appointments for the day had now gone. 11 minutes from opening and no appointments, I was shocked 😞 The website advised me to return back the following day from 8:00am. Last night, i did not sleep much, constantly looking at the bedroom clock incase I did not get up on time. At 7:30am, I sat infrom of the pc, and had the surgery number ready incase I need to call. 

I manage to request an appointment at 8:03am online, and discovered all further appointments for the surgery was closed at approx. 8:05am.

I cant fault the clinical care, but have very grave concerns regarding the non-clinical part of the GP practice. 

This form of service is clearly not acceptable, can anyone shed any light? I intend to raise this as a complaint and progress to the Clinical Commissioning Group if I do not receive a response. 

 

 

 

 

[pikeyed]

Yes, exactly the same experience myself last week. All appointments and messaging closed around 8:05am. It's crazy.

[trinidad]

16 minutes ago, pikeyed said:

Yes, exactly the same experience myself last week. All appointments and messaging closed around 8:05am. It's crazy.

I find this totally unacceptable. It feels like there is no appointments available at all, and the staff are keeping tight lipped. This is a private company who is commissioned to provide these services. The evergreen website suggested there was 14 practitioners available today. Most are GPs. This has to be addressed pronto. 

I have looked at the Care Quality Commission website and pulled out their latest inspection (August 2023). Disappointingly, the CQC graded the GP practice as overall "requires improvement".

  Tessa Jowell GP Surgery - Care Quality Commission (cqc.org.uk)

feel free to log a complaint with the practice manager, and leave a review of the practice on the NHS website. There are many reviews on the NHS website with alot of unhappy patience.    Complaints and compliments – Tessa Jowell GP Surgery

Edited February 8 by trinidad

[heartblock]

It is terrible, my partner experienced the same issues. It's even worse than the original Melbourne Grove Practice that moved there. It is run by a private company...the incompetence for both me and my partner across the last 3 years is astounding. I have left.

https://www.nhsforsale.info/private-providers/concordia-health-new/

 

[ianr]

>I intend to raise this as a complaint and progress to the

>Clinical Commissioning Group if I do not receive a response.

You've not seen the notes in the CQC's Inspection Evidence Table then?  The NHS moves on  😉

"Note: From July 2022, the CCGs have been replaced with Sub Integrated Care Board Locations (SICBL) and CCG ODS codes have been retained as part of this."  

[first mate]

2 hours ago, heartblock said:

It is terrible, my partner experienced the same issues. It's even worse than the original Melbourne Grove Practice that moved there. It is run by a private company...the incompetence for both me and my partner across the last 3 years is astounding. I have left.

https://www.nhsforsale.info/private-providers/concordia-health-new/

 

I do believe that it was Concordia (the old Melbourne Grove Practice, super GP Practice owner) that merged with another private Super GP practice and were effectively 'gifted' the wonderful site at TJ. It is an absolute disgrace that a prime piece of NHS real estate was seemingly just handed over to one of Southwark's pet health providers. I think the board is/ was made up of a bunch of city boys, with one or two doctors. 

Concordia at Melbourne Grove practice were beyond awful and it was on the cards that the TJ GP Practice would go the same way. MG was good under Dr Sheila Grant but as soon as Concordia took over the place rapidly went down hill. I could not believe it when I saw they had got their mitts on the Tessa Jowell site.

I meant to say that it is interesting that Evergreen/Omnes, the new version of Concordia, have put a lot into developing an app to offer personalised health data collection from a variety of sources- yes I can see this is useful for the patient but sooooo useful to the company as well. 

Edited February 8 by first mate

[trinidad]

7 hours ago, heartblock said:

It is terrible, my partner experienced the same issues. It's even worse than the original Melbourne Grove Practice that moved there. It is run by a private company...the incompetence for both me and my partner across the last 3 years is astounding. I have left.

https://www.nhsforsale.info/private-providers/concordia-health-new/

Thanks for sharing this heartblock, can your partner log a complaint? I see profit before service, I don't believe private companies can deliver public services, as they always have a financial incentive. We as patience need to be listerned to. Please encourage your partner to complain? 

 

6 hours ago, ianr said:

>I intend to raise this as a complaint and progress to the

>Clinical Commissioning Group if I do not receive a response.

You've not seen the notes in the CQC's Inspection Evidence Table then?  The NHS moves on  😉

"Note: From July 2022, the CCGs have been replaced with Sub Integrated Care Board Locations (SICBL) and CCG ODS codes have been retained as part of this."  

Thanks for the correction, and no I did not read the notes. I will contact the CQC and ICB if I do not receive a satisfactory response, and see some urgent changes made.

5 hours ago, first mate said:

I do believe that it was Concordia (the old Melbourne Grove Practice, super GP Practice owner) that merged with another private Super GP practice and were effectively 'gifted' the wonderful site at TJ. It is an absolute disgrace that a prime piece of NHS real estate was seemingly just handed over to one of Southwark's pet health providers. I think the board is/ was made up of a bunch of city boys, with one or two doctors. 

Concordia at Melbourne Grove practice were beyond awful and it was on the cards that the TJ GP Practice would go the same way. MG was good under Dr Sheila Grant but as soon as Concordia took over the place rapidly went down hill. I could not believe it when I saw they had got their mitts on the Tessa Jowell site.

I meant to say that it is interesting that Evergreen/Omnes, the new version of Concordia, have put a lot into developing an app to offer personalised health data collection from a variety of sources- yes I can see this is useful for the patient but sooooo useful to the company as well. 

I think your right, as soon as the merge took place, things have gone down hill. I don't honestly think the company can deal with demand. There must be thousands of people registered now. Dr J Love is a great guy, i think he is quite senior. He was at melbourne. In fact, for me, i cant fault the care or reception staff i report to on arrival. There is a big problem with securing appointments. Offer a five minute window each day is totally unacceptable. is it really worth offering appointments at all? I am so sure there must be alot of disgruntled people who cant get an appointment. I have relatives who are not great on the pc, so there chance of securing an appointment would be very slim at best. Something is seriously wrong. I know one person on the thread said this was also happening last week as well. We must hold this organization to account, especially as something serious could happens. There CQC report last year, suggested empowering staff to do more. The only thing i was told was to contact the surgery the following day. There was nothing else offered like, i will ask someone senior to contact you today or I will talk to one of the GPs. No offer of help what so ever.   

[Froglander]

In case anyone doesn’t know, Dr. Jonathan Love no longer works there.  He left last year.   His departure was announced by on the website.  I miss the old Melbourne Grove.  I feel it went downhill when Concordia took over.

12 hours ago, heartblock said:

It is terrible, my partner experienced the same issues. It's even worse than the original Melbourne Grove Practice that moved there. It is run by a private company...the incompetence for both me and my partner across the last 3 years is astounding. I have left.

https://www.nhsforsale.info/private-providers/concordia-health-new/

Where did you go to?

 

[Penguin68]

Just to clarify, all GP practices are run either by 'private' companies, by private partnerships (still most frequent) or by single, private, individuals. In general companies can frequently be better providers of administrators, and a large private company can amortise the costs of effective IT over a larger business. Private companies providing GP services don't have to be incompetent, those that provide private hospitals are often, in my experience, better administered than NHS hospitals.  All are in GP doctoring to make money. The NHS contracts with them to outsource primary care for the NHS. Direct NHS services are supplied mainly by hospitals (hospital trusts) and some other services (such as psychological services) - although these may also be tendered for by private suppliers. For these we in Dulwich are covered by SLAM (South London and Maudsley Trust) which is an NHS operation - covering Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham.

We are unfortunate in that our experience of GP administration  by private companies is dire, but no more so, frankly, than our experience of admin by (some) partnerships - the tales told here of a very tiny time window to make appointments is also currently true of Forest Hill Group Practice, which is a partnership.

Edited to add - At the moment Primary Care is a sellers' market - there are too few doctors prepared or trained to work in Primary Care, so those that are prepared to do so have the commissioners over a barrel - it really doesn't matter how poor their Quality of Service is - so long as they still treat those patients they can get round to treating properly, the fact that getting appointments is a nightmare doesn't really cut it. Nobody is going to close a practice which isn't actively killing patients when the alternative is no cover at all!

Edited February 9 by Penguin68

[Froglander]

Heartblock, thanks for the link you posted.  It’s not good that the company running Tessa Jowell has managed to reform several times and leave their creditors significantly out of pocket.   Apparently they owe £4.3 million to unsecured creditors. They also seem to be skilled at financial irregularities.  Wonder if Dr Love’s departure had anything to do with this.

[heartblock]

Partnerships always existed, but large organisations like Concordia got ‘in’ when the Tory government broke up the local provider networks and panned it all out for the lowest bidder.

Private companies used to complex contracting made mincemeat of low level ‘buyers’ in the NHS (these support staff were being paid around 20k a year and were used to contacting for supplies rather than writing very tight documents), unfortunately they were naive in the face of very high level legal and contact teams in large organisations. Mainly because when the provider networks were broken up all the senior staff who knew about contacting were made redundant.... and were snapped up by the private organisations.

The seniority and experience was lost from the NHS, the Tory Government and public blasting about ‘overpaid managers’ lost all of this level....leaving juniors to take on these contracts. 

It led to ridiculous situations when some organisations were only following up healthy individuals because ‘urgent’ and ‘non-elective care’ was not covered by the contact. 

I know because I was there as a clinical manager and witnessed the utter chaos. I also had ‘dealings’ with Concordia for a different contract when they wanted clinical advice from me. When I suggested quality controls and expert analysis they were not interested.... cheap and profitable was the only aim of the setup. 

[trinidad]

18 hours ago, Froglander said:

In case anyone doesn’t know, Dr. Jonathan Love no longer works there.  He left last year.   His departure was announced by on the website.  I miss the old Melbourne Grove.  I feel it went downhill when Concordia took over.

 

Thanks for the update, I did not know Dr Love left, I agree, it was better run at melbourne  Grove, but i do like the health centre building though!!

[Penguin68]

9 hours ago, trinidad said:

but i do like the health centre building though!!

That, of course, is shared with a number of different NHS outlets, including the outsourced Kings phlebotomy unit. 

[Froglander]

1 hour ago, Penguin68 said:

That, of course, is shared with a number of different NHS outlets, including the outsourced Kings phlebotomy unit. 

What other NHS outlets are there aside from phlebotomy?  

[ribrob]

I used to be with DMC Crystal Palace Road, and it's much easier getting an appointment at Tessa Jowell Centre than it ever was there.

[ianr]

Now showing at https://my.askmygp.uk/#/intro 

(and similarly via https://www.tessajowellgpsurgery.co.uk/)

(The latter reminds me a bit of the Marie Celeste)

PS: Is anyone not arriving at  Tessa Jowell GP site information from the first URL, or  via https://my.askmygp.uk/#/staffAvailability?  

Welcome to askmyGP
at Tessa Jowell GP Surgery

 

Advanced Notice: Temporary Surgery Closure We would like to inform you in advance that the surgery will be closed on Thursday the 15th February 12.30pm for training. We will resume regular operations on Friday the 16th February 8am to serve you for all your medical needs. We apologize for any inconvenience this brief closure may cause and appreciate your understanding. We are currently experiencing a shortage of GPs this week therefore we are unable to offer any online routine appointments this week, we will however continue to accept only urgent cases and general enquires, please call 020 8194 7600 during our opening hours.

 

Edited February 13 by ianr

[Froglander]

Wonder why there’s a shortage of GPs. Is it illness or maybe they don’t want to pay the cost of getting in a locum.  Locums can earn circa £100 ph for a day’s work.  There is an online advert with a company called Dream Medical for a locum GP for a 12 month rota close to ‘Dulwich’ station paying £80 ph. It also says they pay travel and accommodation costs. Sounds like it might be Tessa Jowell.   Could someone find it and post the advert on here,  for some reason I can’t do it at the moment.  I typed in Locum GP Dulwich London and that came up.   It seems like the NHS has a separate list for locum GPs.

  Did anyone else see this posted a couple of days ago regarding A&E at Lewisham Hospital.  Grim.

Edited February 15 by Froglander

[ianr]

Froglander, where did you find your photo? I've not yet found it on the web via either Tineye or Google.  

https://www.lewishamandgreenwich.nhs.uk/emergency-department-waiting-times is currently saying:

"We have temporarily taken down this webpage displaying the waiting times at our hospitals' Emergency Departments due to technical issues with the data feed."

[Froglander]

It was on Twitter/X but from a couple of days ago.

Edited February 14 by Froglander

[Scruffy Mummy]

I just posted above about my husband with Parkinsons. I'm so upset at the moment.  I think I am going to go very early morning to Tessa Jowell and jump on anyone who looks like a GP just to get past the reception staff and get someone to help us/ 

[Froglander]

Today, 22 February 2024, before 8 am, there was a notification on the Tessa Jowell GP Surgery website that the askmygp system was closed as there weren’t any appointments available for today. I thought they only opened at 8 am.  Said it would open at 8 am the following day.

Edited February 22 by Froglander

[DenmarkHill3]

I’m so sick of this appalling place. I’ve complained to the NHS and CQC

[Froglander]

9 minutes ago, DenmarkHill3 said:

I’m so sick of this appalling place. I’ve complained to the NHS and CQC

Have you had any replies?

[DenmarkHill3]

Yes from Guys and Thomas’s trust complaints team. I emailed Helen Hayes as well. I even contacted the Evergreen app people

[Froglander]

5 hours ago, DenmarkHill3 said:

Yes from Guys and Thomas’s trust complaints team. I emailed Helen Hayes as well. I even contacted the Evergreen app people

What are they able to do? Did you complain to the practice manager?  Are you still registered there?

Edited February 23 by Froglander