On Tue, 09 Jul 1996 17:05:54 GMT, you wrote:

>On Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:11:32 -0400, you wrote:
>
>> Please withdraw you offensive remarks. This forum is not for all GP's. It

>We are, of course, entitled to disagree with what he or anyone else
>says, but I don't think it should get this angry. We are all entitled
>(hopefully) to our own opinions. Free speech and all that!?
>
>On the particular point which started this thread, I'm with Ewan on
>this one. There is nothing more frustrating (from a supplier's point
>of view) than a customer threatening to go public in an attempt to
>blackmail the supplier into action, especially when action is already
>being taken. I'm not saying this is what happened in ths particular
>case,

I can't let this remark go without comment:
No you are right, it did not happen in this particular case. There is
nothing more frustrating for a customer apparently seeing a major
problem not being tackled. In such circumstances it seems reasonable
to contact those who can provide assistance and hopefully reassurance
which had not been forthcoming. There had certainly been no attempt to
"blackmail" anyone on our behalf and no attempt to go public. I aired
our very worrying problems to a number of Meditel staff, our computer
facilitator as well as the AMUG BB and later I provided a response in
this forum which was factual, indicating the problems we are having
and I also noted that Meditel were looking at a number of options.

The main problem in this saga has been poor communication. We now
understand that Meditel were beavering away from the moment we
informed them of our problem. However this was not conveyed to us for
some weeks, depite regular contact with the company, during which our
anxiety increased to the point that we felt that we had to seek help
and advice anywhere possible. Those sources were Meditel, our computer
facilitator and the BB: No newspapers, magazines and deliberately
nothing on GPUK - until I provided a response to a question about the
problems we had when, as I said above, I also said that Meditel were
working on a solution. My practices' duties are to our patients staff
and ourselves and without a computer system, on which we rely so
heavily we could not provide the service we do and many of our staff
would be redundant. I had thought that that Meditel had taken on board
our anxieties having received an apology from them so am a little
surprised to read  recent contributions.

I feel that the matter should be laid to rest now. So perhaps I might
conclude with a summary: Our practice had a computer problem with very
serious ramifications. We informed our suppliers who took it on board
but did not communicate this to us. We became increasingly anxious and
looked elsewhere for advice and help and to inform users about the
potential difficulty (that is NOT blackmail) via the BB. We had an
apology from the company - more than one in fact. Solutions were
proposed and discussed and one is about to be implemeted. Anxiety has
been replaced by disappointment at the critisism that has been
directed our way by our suppliers.

Please note I am not a Meditel basher. Overall we have been as happy
with Meditel's System 5, which has served our large practice well, as
anyone can be with their GP computer system . I hope for a successful
outcome to our problem and I was looking forward to reporting it.

------------------------------
Dr Sam Macfie, Haxby, York, UK
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