At my surgery, if you want an appointment sooner than 3 weeks away, you have to appear in person at 8am sharp to join the queue at reception when they dole out the apointments. No use ringing at 8 am as you never get through.

I’m not out to bash GPs, but the current cry for more of them would see workloads fall and presumably each GP earning less?

Oh….

More GP’s could mean more anticipatory care planning and potentially less demand on secondary health care. It would also mean they could keep pace with demographic growth. the older person population growth is a crisis on our doorstep, GP’s are critical to managing this in the community

Move to Cardiff. An hour or so every morning is open surgery – turn up in that time and you are guaranteed to be seen. Never takes more than about 90 mins in our place.

Not sure if this is a Welsh thing or not.

As mentioned on other page, call 111. Short telephone assessment and if it’s needed to be looked at within a few hours then they’ll book you an appt. at an OOH GP Service (can only do this after 18:30 and at weekends)

West Meon Surgery is Brill! The receptionist appolagizes if there is not an appointment when you ring….”Will this evening do”?

Molgrips – I run open surgery in my practice every afternoon… If you’re willing to wait up to 90 minutes you’ll get seen the same day… It does mean I get beasted every afternoon, but the view from up here on my high horse is amazing…!

DrP

got to say my gp has it nailed.. open surgery all morning from 08.30 til 11.30 turn up be seen you ll wait but you ll be seen appointments all afternoon even open late nights twice a week but as he says no ones poorly enough to come when corries on..

Shocking, isn’t it. Last time I called for an appointment I had to wait a couple of hours to see a GP and then had to back again – the same afternoon – to get an X-ray.

Me: What if I can’t get to Derby?

Receptionist: You can dial 999

For **** sake no wonder we never stop and doing 14hrs+ shifts.

Wait until 6.30, ring 111 get a local ooh appointmet tonight. The system works, people just aren’t told to use it properly.

Really? In the sense is saves you dialling 999 as they do it for you maybe.

I phoned my Dr. I’d like an appoinment please. When for? Soon as possible really. You cant have one. Eh. You have to phone back at 8am in the morning. Do you not find people cant get through at that tie. Its our policy. Its shit I cant walk or drive I need a sick note and I need an appointment so I can arrange to be driven to you. You have to phone tomorrow for an appointment tomorrow. But thats no good as i wont be able to get to you unless i can sort it out in advance. You have to phone at 8 am. How about you **** off.
I never did get a sick note until.a week later when I had my second hospital appointment.

I run open surgery in my practice every afternoon

Good stuff. Although the morning thing is very convenient – seems to be when we need it most.

My wife rang for an appointment for one of our girls today.

She rang at 8.00am. She was in the doctors (seeing our preferred Doc) for an 8.50am appointment.

Had the same problem recently with my GP. Needed to see a GP, didn’t want to take time out from work so tried to make an appointment for an evening surgery the following day. “Sorry you’ll need to phone tomorrow morning to make an appointment for then. Call us at 8.30 as it’s when we open”. Result is 30 minutes trying to get through, only to be told they’re full once you get anything other than an engaged tone. Helpfully they could fit me in sometime next week. Rang 111, who listened to what my problem was, and told me to ring the GP back and insist I needed an appointment within 24 hours.

Finally get my ultrasound scan on Wednesday to finally get to the bottom of it, a mere 6 weeks later. So much for certain things needing to be checked urgently!

DrP – I agree it is mostly an issue of demand outstripping supply but what our surgery has implemented a system designed to better serve them rather than better serve the patient.

A normal appointment will be available in 10-15 days. Great for long standing conditions and planned events.
An emergency appointment can only be booked by ringing on the day at 8am and again at 8:01am and again at 8:02am…

What about something in between?

I have been running a temperature since Saturday of just over 100. Sometime it drops and I feel okay for a couple of hours and then it comes back and I am sweating and aching. I missed the 8am lottery this morning and will need to stay home again tomorrow to try my luck.

What I would like is to be able to ask for an appointment and get one allocated in the next few days instead of being gold to rest over the weekend and ring again on Monday morning when I would be told to try again on Tuesday.

We speak to everyone first, guarantee to see everyone who needs seeing on the day they call. Seems to work pretty well apart from the fact we’re running at flat out, especially if someone’s off work.

Each week 9.2% of our patients call to request an appointment.
Each week we see (face to face) 4% of our patients.
(This doesn’t include nurse appointments.)

That equates to me phoning 40-75 patients each day, seeing 15-30 of them and visiting 1 or 2 plus prescription requests and letters, blood results, etc. We’re at the high end of demand as a practice. Just know that we don’t deliberately make it difficult for patients to see us (we spend time and money trying to make it easy)- sometimes I wonder why we bother!

GP’s are ace in my opinion! You get seen quickly, and at a given time! You get the drugs you need etc.. If this doesn’t happen at ‘your’ surgery, move to another where it does!

Wait till you end up in hospital… You can spend weeks waiting for a simple test, like an xray! Dr’s come when it suits them, not when needed to make desicion on care 👿 Pills that should be given at regular intervals turn up at random times etc etc

I could go on, but I won’t.

My GP is usually pretty good- sure you sometimes want to see them faster, but they’re obviously up against it resource wise. And a big part of it’s got to be the “customer”, they ask if it’s urgent, I generally say no but you can guarantee there’s people taking up the emergency appointments for ****-all.

What does annoy me is hospital appointments. Need an appointment? We’ll post it to you. Can’t make that time? Phone up and cancel. We’ll send you another one. Then, get furious letter because you “missed your appointment”- even though you rescheduled. Then every time you go there there’s posters everywhere, “don’t miss appointments”. Though, one time an outpatient’s clinic was rammed and massively delayed, they admitted it was because everyone had turned up- they didn’t have enough seats never mind doctors, they plan for DNAs even though they complain about them, turns out they rely on them.

Can usually get a appointment with any of the four gp’s the next day. If not Wednesday morning you can get there at 0800 and get seen.

If I can’t then ringing 111 and you can get an appointment at the primary care centre.

I have read through this thread and decided that what we need is a nationwide initiative to raise standards which can be driven through at short notice spand lowest cost by a mass reorganisation and a new computer system code eloped by Atos and Cognizent.

Everyone agree???

😉

Move to Cardiff. An hour or so every morning is open surgery – turn up in that time and you are guaranteed to be seen. Never takes more than about 90 mins in our place.

Not sure if this is a Welsh thing or not
+1

My surgery in Cardiff is exactly the same, though the most I’ve ever had to wait was an hour – which doesn’t bother me in the slightest. We probably go to the same surgery (Whitchurch?) 🙂

Contrary to many experiences here my GP surgery is excellent.

Morning and evening appointments reserved for urgent issues and one GP starts each day at 0700 for people who need to go before work.
Nurses are first come first served in the morning and appointments in the afternoon.

Receptionists are helpful and polite with prescription renewals carried out very efficiently

About time people were charged for missing appointments by just not showing up, not even courteous enough to make a phone call to say they can’t make it

Do any GPs run a sort of priority booking system based on how infrequently they see you?
I.e if you only ask for an appointment every 10 years or so, it’s probable that it may be important, rather than say the worried well booking?

Did the OP get his appointment?

ok, I’m sorry to all the GPs I’ve offended.

Started ringing at 8.00, 15 redials and 6 minutes later I got through. Appointment at 10.20. Happy with that. 😳

I will add “cranky and short tempered” to my list of symptoms. Though if the doc checks my posting history on here he may decide it’s an on going condition.

At least I’ll get to ask him if he prefers his R8 to his old 911 😉

priority booking system based on how infrequently they see you

This is a superb idea. 🙂

IanMunro – Member

Do any GPs run a sort of priority booking system based on how infrequently they see you?

I should bloomin hope not, sure some frequent flyers will just be coming in for things others wouldn’t, and some of that could be considered timewasting or nonurgent but some people just need more doctor’s time than others.

We probably go to the same surgery (Whitchurch?)

Nope, Pontprennau.

He prefers the R8 btw, and made sure I got an eyeful of his shiny Rolex when he took my pulse.

Doesn’t actually know what the matter is, suspects I’m a bit stressed and run down. Never knew you could go all dizzy and woozy with stress but apparently you can.

I resisted the urge to say “Stressed? STRESSED? Have you ever tried phoning for an appointment at 8am? I’ll show you stress!” 😆

Started ringing at 8.00, 15 redials and 6 minutes later

Our surgery just puts you in a queue on the phone so no need to redial. Sounds like we are fortunate compared to some.

My doc is pretty good and getting a that day appointment often works.
What pisses me off is that I can’t book ahead. If its not urgent I want to plan around work. I call to be told that they can’t book ahead and I have to call first thing in the morning.

My doc is pretty good and getting a that day appointment often works.
What pisses me off is that I can’t book ahead. If its not urgent I want to plan around work. I call to be told that they can’t book ahead and I have to call first thing in the morning.

The problem is that there aren’t enough appointments to go around!

At one end of the spectrum you can book ahead but have to tolerate long waits (1st appointment with Dr Popular is in 3 weeks) plus the 8am phone scrum for emergency/on the day appointments. At the other end you have all appointments on the day only with a guarantee that everyone who calls any particular day and wants to be seen will be (but most are dealt with by phone). There’s then all sorts of hybrid systems but none is perfect. Part of the problem is that GP practices serve different populations with very different priorities, from the chronic sick who are normally old/ not in work to the young, normally fit and well who need access around work. Keeping everyone happy is nigh on impossible. Perhaps we need to separate practices into those that cater for the normally fit and well and those that cater for those with long-term problems- walk in clinics and suchlike work a bit like this already.

As an aside, I reckon 10 minute appointments are unsafe for many patients…