A DOCTORS’ surgery has revamped its appointment system in the hope of providing a better service for its patients.

The Mayflower Medical Centre, in Dovercourt, started operating a new hybrid system on Wednesday to give patients both telephone appointments and the ability to book in person.

The new improvements come following the feedback from patients having difficulty with the former telephone system at the surgery.

Patients also highlighted some of the issues with the old system at the north east Essex Clinical Commissioning Group’s board meeting in Dovercourt, in March.

The main question raised by the public focused on the frustration of waiting times to book a doctor’s appointment over the phone.

Some residents said they had to wait a month until an appointment was available and others complained of the difficulty of booking a smear test at the surgery.

The surgery’s new hybrid system means that as well as having prioritised telephone slots, all GPs will have routine appointments which can be booked in advance with the reception team. Home visit requests will be triaged by a clinician to either arrange a visit or deal with requests over the phone if appropriate.

Telephone triage will now only be done by GPs and not the nursing team.

A Mayflower Medical Centre spokesman said the centre has made the changes in response to the feedback from its patients.

He said: “From May 1, we will be operating a hybrid system that utilises both telephone triage and pre-bookable routine GP appointments.”

The surgery is also making changes to the way it caters for patients who feel they need to be seen as a matter of urgency when there are no appointments remaining for the day they call up.

The spokesman said: “These patients will be added to the duty doctor’s telephone triage list, the GP will triage the reason an appointment has been requested, and then make contact with the patient to book an appointment or ask reception to do so.

“However, please be aware there is a finite number of slots on the duty doctor’s telephone triage list and once it is fully booked, patients will be signposted to the walk-in centre or A&E as appropriate.”

The Standard previously reported the surgery saying it prides itself in providing excellent services to its registered patients.

The surgery said it will be making 25 per cent of all clinical appointments available for online booking.