PATIENTS have criticised a new “state-of-the-art” telephone queuing system that has left some waiting for more than 30 minutes to book a doctor’s appointment.

Healthcare provider Anglian Community Enterprise (ACE) launched the new Care Navigation system last week at four GP surgeries across Tendring.

Frustrated patients had previously been left queuing outside in the cold in a desperate bid to get a doctor’s appointment at surgeries across Clacton as they were they were unable to get through to reception staff on the telephone.

The new system covers 22,750 patients at the Epping Close surgery in Clacton, Frinton Road Medical Centre in Holland-on-Sea, Caradoc in Frinton and Green Elms in Jaywick.

Health bosses said the state-of-the-art system, which has been designed by doctors and clinical staff, has 30 new lines and would improve patients’ ability to get through to someone.

Green Elms patient Ian Pease, 68, of Jaywick Lane, Clacton, said he was forced to wait more than 30 minutes before his call was answered.

“The new system is awful,” said Mr Pease, who suffers from arthritis and high blood pressure.

“I spent 30 minutes waiting to get an appointment.

“If I didn’t have high blood pressure already, I would have had it after that call – my blood was boiling. When I did get through, they did manage to book an appointment for me next week.

“Having to wait half an hour to get through is unacceptable – I have never had to wait that long before when phoning the surgery.”

Rodney Eldridge, from Cypress Close, Clacton, was also left angry after waiting more than 25 minutes before the line went dead.

He said: “I was being attended to by two marvellous paramedics on Friday and they needed to contact Epping Close surgery to get a doctor to get me a prescription for a different antibiotic to the one I was taking. They were put on hold for 40 minutes until the call was picked up - they were informed the surgery would get a GP to phone me.

“My wife phoned later in the afternoon on two occasions and was put on hold for 25 minutes and then the line went dead. It is a disgrace - at least with the old system you could actually talk to a receptionist. I hope they get this sorted out very quickly.”

The new system sees patients phone their surgeries as before, but their call is now answered by a ‘care navigator’ who will ask the patient a few questions to ensure they get directed to the most appropriate service.

Jayne Hiley, director of operations at Anglian Community Enterprise, said: “The new telephone system and control centre is currently receiving a very high number of calls in a very short space of time immediately after 8am which has resulted in some callers needing to make more than one call to get through to an operator and waiting longer than we would like.

“We believe this problem will be alleviated once patients realise the new system doesn’t require them to try and be first in the queue to receive the most appropriate treatment and calls will be spread more evenly throughout the day.

“We are also reviewing our staffing rotas so we can better meet the peaks in demand.

“The very encouraging news is that since launching the system, we have been able to free up appointment slots for GPs or nurse practitioners at all four surgeries because many patients phoning in are able to be offered effective alternatives to a GP/nurse appointment.

“This is exactly the scenario we wanted from the introduction of Care Navigation and I am totally confident our patients will find this new system a big improvement on the old system and queues outside the surgeries will be a thing of the past.”