As a long-suffering customer of Church Lane surgery and its prior manifestations I thought that things were improving.

Finding a parking space in the tiny car park, using a working check-in machine and attending an on-time appointment with a pleasant GP at the surgery recently left me feeling surprisingly positive.

The GP offered to do a procedure instead of sending me to the local hospital. He prescribed medication and instructed me to collect it from the pharmacy.

I simply had to arrange a 20-minute appointment at reception.

My request flummoxed the receptionist. After ten minutes she was still unable to carry out this apparently simple task. She needed to talk to the GP about it as the system wouldn’t allow it.

I was told they would ring me later. As they hadn’t by 4pm, I rang them.

On hold for 20 minutes, I was finally told that a 20-minute appointment was impossible.

My suggestion of two ten-minute ones was not on. Inflexible computer says ‘no’.

I must now wait around one morning for a ten-minute telephone consultation with the GP so that I may be referred to the local hospital to have the procedure carried out by someone else.

I wonder if Virgin who own/operate the surgery and the NHS, who provide it with taxpayers’ money, have any idea of the ludicrous, time-wasting, inefficient impression their customers and paymasters get from the absurdly rigid systems and procedures they choose to operate.

Perhaps its time that those ‘managing’ NHS services applied some everyday commonsense to their work practices. It might save them quite a lot of our money.

Rob Green

Hazel Grove

Braintree