Local Liberal Democrat Crompton Councillor Louie Hamblett has written to Oldham’s Clinical Commissioning Group in his capacity as Shadow Cabinet Member for Health and Adult Social Care in regards to Royton and Crompton family practice telephone issues.
His letter dated 9th of September asks as to what actions are being taken in regards to Royton and Crompton family practice (based in Royton) being unable to answer their phone lines and their dire ability to correspond with patients, local pharmacies and other health professionals.
Mike Barker Oldham’s Chief Operating Officer for Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group responded to Councillor Hamblett following on from his initial correspondence, in which he asked what actions are being taken to resolve your constituents’ problems contacting their GP by phone following the recent merger of Royton and Crompton Family Practice and The Parks Medical Practice.
Mike Barker said: “I was sorry to learn of this dissatisfaction and I thank you for bringing these concerns to our attention. Regrettably, following the merger of the two practices on 24 August 2020, there was significant disruption to the telephone lines. This was due to a failure to change and reconfigure the telephone lines which resulted in the number of telephone lines into the merged practice effectively being reduced from six to three. Clearly this affected the practices ability to answer telephone calls in a timely manner and resulted in many patients and other health professionals finding themselves in a position that they could not be connected.”
Councillor Hamblett is pleased to report: “The reason for the failure to update the lines is being looked into. However, by 4 September 2020, the total number of telephone lines into the practice was restored to six and the telephone lines are now fully operational. Hopefully this should help improve the situation.
“It really is not good enough; people have had the stress of being moved from their practice’s location and then cannot contact or have meaningful communication with the new practice location. I do hope the situation improves and I will be monitoring it closely.”