County Durham GP surgeries with most unhelpful receptionists

Patients had their say on how helpful they found reception staff at their surgery in the annual GP Patient Survey.

Rockliffe Court Surgery in Darlington, The Haven Surgery in Burnhope, and Blacketts Medical Practice in Darlington emerged as the top three in the most ‘helpful receptionists’ category.

On the other end of the scale, Bewick Crescent Surgery in Newton Aycliffe, Ferryhill and Chilton Medical Practice, and Consett Medical Centre were named the bottom three.

While these surgeries were ranked in the bottom three, it's worth pointing out that these results are from a GP patient survey, which also ranks overall experience, ease of phone appointments, getting to see a GP, and booking an appointment - which some of these surgeries thrive in.

However, this list focuses solely on how patients found receptionists, and how helpful they were.

The 10 GP surgeries with the most helpful receptionists

1. Rockliffe Court Surgery, Darlington -100.0%
2. The Haven Surgery, Burnhope - 99.4%
3. Blacketts Medical Practice, Darlington - 98.7%
4. Gainford Surgery - 98.6%
5. St George's Medical Practice, Darlington - 98.5%
6. Great Lumley Surgery - 98.3%
7. Old Forge Surgery, Middleton In Teesdale - 98.1%
8. Cheveley Park Medical Centre, Belmont - 98.0%
9. Carmel Medical Practice, Darlington - 98.0%
10. Annfield Plain Surgery - 97.7%

The 10 GP surgeries with unhelpful receptionists

1. Bewick Crescent Surgery, Newton Aycliffe - 31.5%
2. Ferryhill and Chilton Medical Practice - 30.4%
3. Consett Medical Centre - 29.3%
4. Clifton Court Medical Practice, Darlington - 22.5%
5. Pease Way Medical Centre - 21.3%
6. Cestria Health Centre, Chester-le-Street - 20.3%
7. Oakfields Health Group - 18.2%
8. Hallgarth Surgery, Shildon - 18.0%
9. Byron Medical Practice, Seaham - 17.8%
10. Skerne Medical Group, Sedgefield - 17.6%

Meanwhile, NHS England has warned of “delays” as services recover from Friday’s global IT outage.

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The health service said patients with appointments this week “should continue to attend unless told not to”.

It comes after the British Medical Association (BMA) warned on Sunday that normal GP service “cannot be resumed immediately” after the outage caused a “considerable backlog”.

The trade union for doctors said GPs would “need time to catch up from lost work over the weekend”, adding that NHS England should “make clear to patients” this was the case.

*All of the data from this story came from the GP patient survey.