GP surgery mystery shopping report
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In December 2020 and January 2021, four Healthwatch Haringey volunteers were tasked with calling all 39 GP surgeries across Haringey to find out how long it could take a potential patient to get through to and speak with a staff member. They managed to speak to a member of staff at 34 out of 39 surgeries.
On average it took less than five minutes for the volunteer to speak with a staff member where someone answered the phone. In two cases it took the volunteer 30 minutes before they were able to speak to someone.
Volunteers reported that there were several very long, and confusing, pre-recorded messages which were played even before the phone began to ring. Many pre-recorded messages directed the volunteer to use online booking systems with no clear option to speak with a staff member.
Volunteers were asked to locate the surgeries opening times and contact telephone numbers from each surgeries’ website. The majority of websites were easy to navigate to find this information but there were two websites that were not, and further investigation was needed to find this information