almost always get a telephone appointment on the same or next day.
Hope you realise just how privilidged you are with that sort of service!!
My consultant wrote to my GP setting out the meds that he wants me to be prescibed. The GP then prescribes something different and adds a note to say that they'll review it with me on Sunday (when none of the GPs at that service are working). The consultant is on a fortnights holiday and it'll take me a fortnight to get a phone appointment with the GP to sort things out, meanwhile my condition deteriorates............. The system really is f****d up!!
so you have to plan when you’re going to be ill in advance.
Many of our chronically ill folks have issues that need regular monitoring. We'll contact them to remind them to pop in for a check up or bloods or whatever, or they can book in to see a nurse via the text we send them. This system works very well for them.
You do realise a fair few number of primary care contacts aren’t acutely ill..hence why if I wanted to speak about getting a vasectomy, or have an HRT check, or just chat about my latest blood pressure readings, I’d be perfectly happy to have a booked appointment in 2-3 weeks time…
Just because a function of a system may not suit you, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t suit all…
DrP
Absolutely, and there have been plenty of instances where the ability to book in advance is very useful.
What I'm saying is that having the option to book the next day doesn't stop another person booking in 14 days time. However, having the only option being 14 days does stop the person who needs a more urgent booking from doing so.
If the app let you book both urgent/next day appointments and also appointments further in advance then that would seem to work better. Particularly if you also kept an agreed percentage for those who prefer to call on the day.
I feel like i'm just popping up to defend primary care!!
My consultant wrote to my GP setting out the meds that he wants me to be prescibed. The GP then prescribes something different and adds a note to say that they’ll review it with me on Sunday (when none of the GPs at that service are working). The consultant is on a fortnights holiday and it’ll take me a fortnight to get a phone appointment with the GP to sort things out, meanwhile my condition deteriorates…………. The system really is f****d up!!
ooh, now this may be interesting..
Obviously the situation here isn't 100% transparrent, but..
It may well be the consultant has asked the GP to innapropriately prescribe a drug that is either 'red listed' (which means it's consultant prescription only), or is 'blacklisted' (not to prescribe at all).. or maybe the consultant has asked for a drug that isn't part of the local CCG health economy formulary...?
(or, your GP may just be daft and have made an error, of course..)
GPs are forever getting innapropriate requests from secondary care to 'do this, do that', prescribe this'. And in many cases the only option is to say NO (and write back telling them to do their OWN job!) or to prescribe an alternative..
Genuinely, sometimes the cost of Drug B is SIGNIFICANTLY more than Drug A... yes the patient hasn't tried drug A yet..
If a consultant jumps straight to Drug B, you'll find most GPs will suggest and prescribe drug A.
Honestly - if YOU were paying for the drug, i'm sure you'd prefer the option of having a more cost effective optin.
Think...local indy garage vs main dealer and OE kit...;-)
DrP
My GP - phone in the morning by 9. No issues getting thru. You will have a telephone appt AND a face to face if needed that day. I have never not been seen on the day if needed. they also holdback some emergency appointments every day so even if you phone up after 9 and its a situation where you need to see a GP urgently you will
Emailing in symptoms and pictures and things - a huge NO from a confidentiality point of view.
the problem with the variability of service ( apart from the staffing pressures) is the status of GPs as independent contractors so some are just better organised than others.
I’d be perfectly happy to have a booked appointment in 2-3 weeks time…
Just to be clear, they aren't offering apppointments in excess of 2 weeks. On any given day you have TWO options - either that day, or 14 days' time. Both fill up almost immediately, so you're back on the phones the next day. They don't offer you an appointment in 15 days time or later.
The reason we stopped doing that is because mostly we like to be able to speak with or triage what we see
I would have loved to talk to a nurse or anyone. I wasn't offered that.
Do I just have a bad surgery? Can I change to one less busy?
I suspect a disorganized and overworked surgery
Have you tried phoning again in the afternoon and explaining the situation?
Have you tried phoning again in the afternoon and explaining the situation?
I got through, and explained it, she just told me to call back tomorrow. It's just such an inefficient system - there are dozens of us spending hour after hour on the phone every day doing this and the receptionist is just fielding it every day. Must be soul crushing for them.
Makes me want to go and write them a better system just so that they can then book me in. No payment required just a ****ing appointment!
What if you are calling about a suspicious lump or mole and by the time you get an appointment you're already too far gone? This must be happening, surely?
If it makes you feel better the patients who've left a google review all say the same thing; Doctors are great, appointment system a shambles.
What if you are calling about a suspicious lump or mole and by the time you get an appointment you’re already too far gone? This must be happening, surely?
I would assume / hope that the receptionist will triage and, as was the case for my wife last Thursday (as mentioned earlier in this thread), you will get seen more quickly. My wife called the GP at 8am, was seen in person at 9.40am and was at the hospital Same Day Emergency department at 11am.
I told her there was a skin problem on my daughter's head and she just said 'oh you'll need to see the GP and there are no appointments'. Didn't really fill me with confidence. I'd have hoped with that sort of thing she'd have asked a few scripted questions to rule out types of skin cancer. She didn't ask anything about it.
receptionists do not and should not do triage - they are not medical professionals and its well beyond their skill set and would have no liability cover I would have thought
Doctors are great, appointment system a shambles.
No need for the appointment system to be a shambles. thats a management issue and can and should be sorted
Thanks to that covid obsessed and business killing doom goblin Drakeford and his band of minions, the Welsh NHS is a total mess. Many many issues here.
Sounds like the OP uses my local doctors from what has been described. You have to fight to get a same day appointment, even for children. Regardless of anything. Receptionists are generally self appointed doctors, many with deep seated attitude problems who forget who they are. Someone mentioned they are trained to triage, are they hell. Just looking for the first excuse so they can tell you you cannot see a doctor today.
Adding to an already busy if not overrun A&E and doctors surgeries is the fact that they binned the out of hours doctors, so you now have to call the NHS 'helpline' wait hours and hours to get through (if you don't get cut off) which then puts you through to someone who inevitably sends you to A&E - if you're calling about a child they will 100% send you to A&E regardless as they won't take any risks. So don't bother calling about a child - its futile and mere time wasting.
receptionists do not and should not do triage
At a very basic level I expect my reception team to ask some very straight forward questions about why pats are phoning and what they want. I'd expect my team to be able to make a decision about which sort of clinician the patient should be seeing (one of the nursing team, an ANP, HCA GP etc), and I'd expect them to be able to recognise pts that could benefit from speaking with one of our Care Navigators if it's problem that could be best dealt with more quickly and appropriately outside the practice.
Emailing in symptoms and pictures and things – a huge NO from a confidentiality point of view.
No GP will ask you to email anything in. We have a patient records system that enables GPs to send MSM links to your phone and deposits the pictures that you send back via your phone straight into your records. I'd expect my GPs to be deleting sensitive pictures that don't need keeping (acute rash on babies privates, for instance)
If it's any consolation Molly, children get seen generally same day or following morning here by GPs
I would liked to have spoken to a nurse, or even sent pictures in. Apparently they do do this but it wasn't offered. I'm sure the service is there, I've just got no idea how to access it. If I don't get an appointment tomorrow I'll have to press them.
I honestly don't know how the Welsh system works, but I think you can access it by signing up to My Health Online I think.
Good luck, hope you get it sorted.
Can’t book appointments with our GP either . If you finally get through they just tell you to go to A and E if it’s serious enough. I haven’t bothered trying again since getting that message a few weeks ago. They are just doing a patient pass the parcel.
It's reassuring that Jeremy Hunt is working with the BMA to 'rebuild general practice'. You couldn't make it up.
They are just doing a patient pass the parcel.
It works both ways...
999 went out to see a 95 year old man (about 40 min ago) who fell a few weeks ago and hit his head, and now has poor mobility, wife can't cope with him, slurred speach, and a terrible headache...
Their answer... refer back to GP..
So i'm now urgently trying to arrange hospital admission for a man who should have been taken straight to A+E for an urgent CT brain scan.
FFS
DrP
IME rural practices are much better.
I've only been to mine once since I've lived here, six years, but that involved ringing up one afternoon, being told rather apologetically that they didn't have any appointments left that day and that the earliest they could do was 10am tomorrow? Yep, fine by me. That was 2019 though, so before plague if that makes any difference.
Others have reported similar around here.
Thanks to that covid obsessed and business killing doom goblin Drakeford and his band of minions, the Welsh NHS is a total mess.
I was bitten by a dog on Sunday, messaged my surgery via askmygp yesterday, had a call from the surgery about 30 minutes later trying to get me down for a Tetanus jab about 45 minutes later again. I've often had terrible experiences with the NHS, but this week has been a good one. I think that the issue may be more than 'because Drakeford'. (And a lot of it is obviously poor management, something that my GP seems to have sorted.)
