Dear LPG

I would like to talk about our GP services again.  As we know the system is getting worse and worse. and I can imagine a really large proportion of the ill members of our Lewisham population sitting poised on the phone and online at eight o’clock each morning, in addition to the people who find themselves standing outside the surgery in the hope of being seen on the day.

Over the past year or two I have found that getting on line in order to sort out repeat prescriptions is one  thing that can be sorted reasonably quickly though.   Well until about a week ago when I needed to renew again.  They have updated the system and I was greeted with a new look patient access web page.

Everything was going swimmingly until I worked out that my password and all the other codes I previously used to access the system failed to work.  So I had to trundle down to the surgery yet again to find out exactly what was going on.

When I got there the receptionist informed me that everyone who had used the online patient access site up to this point will now have to actually go back to the surgery in order to have the receptionist tweak it so that it will allow them to use the system again.

I now know that I will not be the only patient affected, and as they say forewarned is forearmed, so I feel it only fair that others get a heads-up.  This is why I am hoping that LPG will post this information as quickly as possible, because otherwise I can see the patients who access the online way of obtaining repeat prescriptions during the next three months or so, waking up to the fact that they are not able to, leaving them as frustrated about the situation as I found myself. 

No doubt, a lot of taxpayer’s money was spent on updating the website which took me a fair time to get to grips with in the first place, so my question has to be; why would you fix something that's not broken?

By the way, if you can get the thing to work it is a really helpful tool.

 MT, Catford

LPG has found the link to the start Point for the new patient access website but would like to point out that if you're a new patient, or an existing one, it appears that you will have to visit the receptionist at your GP before you will be able to use this service in the future.

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