LIKE Terry Butler (Letters, January 14), I am pleased to say my doctor’s surgery in Shirley Avenue sets a good example to others.

Telephone calls are always answered by very pleasant and obliging receptionists who always offer a polite welcome when patients arrive.

Appointments are usually available on the same day and always within 48 hours.

Doctors are always willing to make calls to patients’ homes to discuss problems. They fax prescriptions to chosen chemists to make life easier for the immobile and housebound.

Those patients who do attend the surgery are checked in by human beings, not by computer screens smothered in germs. Doctors come into the waiting room to fetch each patient, so the blind or hard of hearing are not afraid of missing their turn. Long may the system last!

MISS PATRICIA E FRY, Southampton.