Friends & Family Survey-Ravensworth Surgery, South Shields & The Medical Centre, Jarrow
Survey for Month: April 2026 - Total responses received: 163	
Overall experience very good	123	
Overall experience good	24	
Overall experience neither good nor bad	5	
Overall experience poor	6	
Overall experience very poor	0	
Overall experience entered as "fair"	3	
Overall experience not "rated" just comments added  x 2	
Positive comments received this month, included:
Always listened to & given timely next steps covering all options.                                                                                    Everything went very well.
Nurse aware of my anxiety around injections-took measures to prevent fainting-really compassionate & caring.
Please continue with staff friendliness, sincere approach & willingness to help.
Lovely surgery & staff.                                                                                                                                                   Felt GP really wanted to help me.	
Negative comments received this month included [Please note that remarks published may be pre cis version because of length] :
Mix up over appointment and I was blamed.                                       I cancelled appointment 9/1/25, due to post op recovery and wasn’t offered another.
Didn’t feel taken seriously.                                                                                                       Long history of mental illness – expected GP to be more concerned.
Felt dismissed.                                       Had Jw appointment but GP didn’t turn up and I wasn’t told. Given a telephone appointment but had to wait hours.

Other remarks of note: Registered at Shields but how come only appointments at Jarrow?
Waiting room could do with a TV-news programmes.
2wks for a blood test is unacceptable & doctors could do while you are there.                                                                         Who is the veteran friendly GP? 	
Practice response to feedback: Thank you for everyones' comments, we do take seriously. We cannot tell who they are from & would always say, whenever anyone is unhappy with their consultation or anything to do with the surgery, that they contact us separately to go over those concerns, so that we can investigate what happened and respond, correcting anything feasible. If a patient feels they weren't understood or listened to, please make 
another appointment to go over those worries. If you have cancelled an appointment due to post op recover, please ask for another when ready.
Where appointments have been mixed up, it is never a clinicians' intention to blame a patient for that-miscommunications can regrettably occur 
when dealing with high volume work remit. Where it is established to be a staff members error, that person is re-trained and advised.
Clinical staff can fail to attend due to a number of reasons and where that clinician is a locum, it can be quite short notice of their absence. 
Staff immediately try to contact all relevant patients but the knowledge may come too late to contact some, or no answer may be obtained. 
We understand how upsetting and annoying this may be and try to offer the next available solution.
Patients can attend either practice, irrespective of where they handed in their registration forms. We hold many clinics at Shields but often there is 
more availability at Jarrow. Please let reception know if you only want to be seen at Shields.
The surgery doesn't provide a TV as it can be very distracting and cause anxiety for some patients plus we cannot safely monitor the content to 
ensure no-one is offended or see/hear something wholly unsuitable for age group, culture or beliefs.
The surgery as a whole is veteran friendly but employed clinicians more aware of this than ad hoc locum clinicians. Please let us know if you have 
served in the armed forces when making an appointment. 
GP's need to concentrate on acute presentations-it is not feasible for them to take bloods-2wks may seem a while but we deal with hundreds weekly.
If a GP feels urgent bloods are needed staff are informed and make arrangements. Let us know preference for venue.                       Many thanks