The decline of Healthcare in St Austell

Since the amalgamation of the 4 GP Surgeries covering the St Austell area, there has been a noticeable decline in Health Care.

Patients are having to wait in long queues on the phone to get through and are often cut off before they can speak. Unless it is an emergency you usually have to wait 2 to 3 weeks to see or speak with a Doctor that is if you can get an appointment, if there are no appointments available you are told to ring on the next day that appointments come out at 8am as these appointments go fast. It is almost as difficult to get an appointment with a Nurse they can be booked up at least 5 weeks in advance.

We see from their newsletter that they have taken on one more Doctor since the amalgamation, this in no way replaces the Doctors that have retired, both from the old Polkyth surgery and from the other surgeries in the group. What happened to the Doctors that the NHS promised they had ready to put in place once the ex Polkyth patients decided where they wanted to go, were they just locums? They say that patients with long term conditions are getting continuity of care, but under the current circumstances there seems little if any hope of this, in fact some patients have been told that they should no longer expect any continuity of care.

We are extremely concerned about the decline in Health Care especially with the current growth rate of the area, if St Austell Health Care cannot cope now what will they do with all the extra patients from the new building projects?

Furthermore, Woodland Road Surgery is closed 2 days a week. This was found out by chance, but it only adds to concerns that the current system falls far short of the care we had before the amalgamation and looks as though it will only get worse, this is unacceptable, patients are suffering and a lot of people either give up or go to A & E putting more pressure on an already overcrowded resource, because they can't see or speak to a GP, and many are being advised by the surgery to go to minor injuries as they will be seen quicker.

We are asking that the problems are looked at to see how it can be improved and how St Austell can be given reasonable Health Care, we do not want more clinics and other services until we have a good Health Care service in place.