This is a formal complaint from the residents of East Grinstead and surrounding areas concerning the operation of the Modality Practice in Ship Street, East Grinstead.

The current problems affecting the NHS and shortage of GP’s are well publicised but we feel that these are not the only contributory factors to the poor service being offered by Modality.

The appointment system is totally inefficient A waiting time of over an hour to answer calls is unprofessional, and on reception of that call to be told all available appointments have been allocated and to resume the whole process the following morning is wholly unacceptable.

There doesn’t seem to be a working procedure in place with regards to prescriptions. A lack of communication between reception staff, GPs and pharmacies is causing confusion, inconvenience and stress that could quite easily be avoided, with unnecessary travel to alternative pharmacies rather than our local one being utilised.

Patients seem to be sent to surgeries and hospitals outside of their catchment area with no reasonable explanation from their GP only to be met with animosity by the receiving surgeries and departments.

Despite many attempts to contact Modality for clarification on the points above there seems to be a total lack of concern or desire to address any of them. It is also puzzling as to why a practice that is suffering from staff shortage and being over subscribed with patients would be considering expanding its operation?

We appreciate that over the past few years there have been many contributing factors to the problems the NHS are now facing, but suggesting GP surgeries such as Ship Street for non life threatening cases, will exacerbate the situation rather than cure it due to the problems we have previously highlighted.

Any rare response that we have had from Modality has not offered reasonable explanation. Ship Street used to be the best surgery in the area until they took over and many contributing factors have led to it becoming the worst primarily due to bad management, and not financial restrictions as they are trying to lead us to believe

We would respectfully ask for answers to the above points and some sort of clarification going forward that an improvement to the management of the practice will ensure that the Ship Street surgery will regain its reputation as being the best in the area.