Patients at Rowcroft Medical Centre have been warned that the practice website has been taken offline after the company providing GP websites across Gloucestershire went into administration and ceased trading.
The disruption affects the surgery’s online website, but the practice says its usual services continue to operate. Patients can still contact Rowcroft Medical Centre by telephone and email, use the NHS App and follow updates through the surgery’s Facebook page.
What happened to the Rowcroft Medical Centre website?
The surgery said it received information late on Friday, October 24, that the company responsible for its website had gone into administration. It was subsequently alerted that all websites operated by the provider had been taken down completely.
The website is therefore unavailable because of the provider’s collapse, rather than a reported change to the medical centre’s services. The practice has not said when its website will be restored.
How patients can contact the surgery
Patients who need to contact Rowcroft Medical Centre should continue to use the practice’s existing alternatives while the website is unavailable. The surgery says appointments, telephone calls, emails, the NHS App and its Facebook page will continue to operate as normal.
There is a specific warning for people who used an online form shortly before the announcement. Anyone who submitted a form during the four hours before the announcement and has not received a response is being asked to contact the surgery’s Patient Advisors by telephone.
This advice is intended to ensure that messages submitted through the affected website have not been missed. Patients who are unsure whether their online form was received should use the telephone contact route provided by the practice rather than assume that a response is still pending.
Replacement website being sought
NHS England and Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board are working with the practice to identify an alternative provider. The aim is to restore the Rowcroft Medical Centre website as soon as possible.
The practice said it hoped to resolve the problem quickly and with minimal disruption to patients and staff. Until a replacement website is available, patients should rely on the alternative contact channels listed by the surgery and take particular care to follow up any unanswered online-form submission made shortly before the shutdown.