I arrived at the Surgery 5 minutes ahead of my appointment for a Blood Test. There was one person ahead of me at the Receptionist. Consequently I remained outside the closed double-door entrance until he was admitted to the waiting room. I showed my appoinment sheet and was was also admitted into that room. I was wearing PPE equipment and sat a Social Distance from this other person who (as I found out) had arrived well before his appoinment time but was still admitted to the room. He was not wearing any form of protective mask or gloves.
We both waited for around 5 more minutes during which time two other people were allowed into the room. None were wearing any masks and their positioning within the enclosed room made observing Social Distancing near impossible due to the numbers present. Plus one of them had a cough!!!
My name was called for my Blood Test just as a fifth person arrived at the receptionist window.
At my Doctor's Surgery there is a very strict limit as to the numbers allowed into the waiting room and bascially follows a sensible one out replaced by one in, with any excess having to wait outside.
I was appalled by what I witnessed in terms of the bad organisation. No wonder Covid 19 is still being spread.
Reply from Paulsgrove Surgery
Thank you for your feedback and we are sorry that your visit did not meet your expectations. However, we can assure you that we take social distancing very seriously. As you would have seen in the waiting area, we have taped over seating with appropriate signage to ensure people remain 2 metres apart. Our maximum capacity in the waiting room at Paulsgrove is four people. However, that said, we have asked patients not to attend the surgery until near their waiting time and so the person ahead of you, assuming they were more than 5 minutes early, should not have been admitted to the waiting area. We have since reiterated this to our reception teams to ensure we adhere to this.
All of our sites have been assessed and seating removed or excluded to ensure social distancing is safely observed.
We ask patients to wear a face covering if they attend our sites, to further reduce risk to staff and patients. However, it is not a mandatory requirement and we are not comfortable turning a patient away who we have deemed requires a medical consultation.
Whilst we cannot comment on the patient who coughed, we do remind patients not to attend if they have COVID symptoms and this is reiterated on arrival at our sites.
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