Practice risks cross-infection

• IF anyone should know about Covid-19 infection risks surely it should be a GP doctors’ surgery, but sadly not so.

My GP with a surgery close to the Royal Free, has for years encouraged patients to take their own blood pressure with a “pod” in the waiting room.

The pod used to be cleverly connected to a computer which securely sent the readings direct into the patient’s medical records.

This saved doctors’ time and avoided the need for patients to make appointments. But from a few years ago the computer was frequently switched off or not working.

I made repeated attempts at getting the practice manager to get it fixed for everyone’s benefit but I got back cock-and-bull excuses which made it pretty clear the manager was from a pen-and-pencil era, not able to handle the technology.

During the whole Covid-19 crisis the pod computer has been switched off but the pod prints out paper slips of blood pressure readings.

The patient then has to queue to take the slips to the waiting room desk, and hand to a member of staff who then (we hope) keys the readings accurately into the patient’s medical records.

Obviously this is a waste of everyone’s time but more importantly it is a clear cross-infection risk.

Patients have to touch the inside and outside of the pod where others have touched, then touch the paper slips, and hand them to desk staff, who then have to touch them. I have never seen any gel or cleaning wipes by the pod for patients to use.

Over a period of months I have variously tried to explain the cross-infection risk to a doctor over the phone, to desk staff over the counter, and in an email to the surgery marked for the senior partner’s attention.

I got no reply to the email and, as of today, the situation is the same; except that the dead computer has been removed so handling slips is now unavoidable.

So what do I do? Do I let the surgery discourteously continue ignoring infection safety advice? Or do I waste NHS time by filing a formal complaint?

BARRY FOX
Address supplied