Dr's phone calls when you work

Yanbu - not just when at work, I get so stressed when the GP calls unexpectedly without an appointment. I remember she called to discuss my general anxiety disorder but I felt so rushed and not in the right headspace as I hadn’t had time to think about it.

Bus driver would have been able to see the GP on their day off or before a shift or between shifts. A scheduled appointment.

How would you resource it better to fund an improved system?
Fee per consult
Increased taxation
Private insurance system as per US

I once had to call my GP surgery 76 times to get through at 8am... To be told no appointments. Now I do the online form. More often then not I get a call back the next day though.
Thing is they don't specify a time. I work in healthcare and have patients and I can't just answer my phone. I wish they would specify a time too

We can book appointments online weeks ahead. That seems to work well.

We also have to fill out a form on line and then you will get a call back within 48 hours. I'm sick of trying to book DD an appointment for that day and always having to end up ringing the surgery.
DD has had 3 operations on her left ear and has been told by the consultant that if she thinks it's infected she has to be seen by a GP that day. It's on her notes, I remind them online but I still have to phone up.
Only good thing is when you say to the receptionist the consultant said, they find you an immediate appointment
But call back is rubbish if you work and it can be anytime (they have the nerve to say keep your phone on you) which is great if you don't work.

It says on my surgery's form that you can put a preferred time, but they might not take any notice. And they never have taken any notice of the times I say I can take a call.

My GP you have to do this or you are given the option of a f2f appointment on the day when you call, or you can book online for everything non urgent but that's usually about a 2 week wait. They are open 7 days a week though, Saturday 8-5, sun 8-1 , Monday Tues Thurs 8-8 weds and Friday 8-6. So I think the system plus the hours they are open make it work. I've called on a Tuesday and been given a f2f appointment for the same day but at 6:30pm I was in court all day so couldn't take a phone appointment

When I was teaching and waiting for a GP call back, I went that morning and spoke to my line manager who said I could have my phone turned on in lessons that day, that I could inform the students (KS3/4) that I may have to take a call and had permission to use my phone, and that I could just go outside the room to take the call when it happened. My room had windows from the corridor, so I could still watch the students but they couldn’t hear the conversation. I think my manager realised this would have to be the option or I would have to go home to wait for the call all day. This compromise would not be ideal if it was a sensitive issue, but met my needs that day. I appreciate not all teachers have understanding line managers. I also had the same permission when I was buying a house and waiting for a call back.

Yes ridiculous. I filled in a form they didn’t come back to me for 4 weeks. When I called them they said the GP had made a referral already to the Paediatric CAHMS team, I said to them about what? They said the info you put in your website note. I said ok, didn’t anyone want to speak to me about my daughter before making the referral? I also said did anyone want to tell me the referral had been made? I also said what about telling me what you’ve referred for as it’s only a short form.

Anyway I now have an appointment in October for a doctor to call me.

They intro’d this at my surgery, but the econsult window has got smaller and smaller over the last few years - 8-11am mon-fri; 630-8pm sun-thurs. The evening ones probably work ok for working people, unless you are a commuter (my husband) or you get distracted by feeding/bathing and putting the kids to bed and only realise the time after the window has closed.

Ours is good in that you don’t have to call at 8. You fill out the online consult (although this now only seems to be open between 8 and 3) and someone triages you and if you need an appointment they try to call. If they can’t they text you with details of how to call them. Not perfect but at least they don’t give up if they don’t get through the first time.

They’ve got a good text service where the doctor can ask questions securely as well which I like- gives you a chance to pop in photos or clarify information without having to speak to them.

It doesn’t have to be this way, I don’t know why GPs can’t learn from the flexible ones.

Our practice have an online form open from 7am-1pm every day. You get contact within 24h of putting the info in (if urgent I’ve always heard within a couple of hours). You can request a text or phone call, you can put in times you are available. I’ve often sorted things via message, received a text with appointment details, etc. Phone appointments are much quicker because the practitioner has read what I’ve put (lots of free text boxes so I can write everything in), I don’t have to start at the beginning again. If you cannot use the online form you can phone them. It’s not perfect, and there can still be a long wait for a non urgent appointment but it’s pretty flexible and seems to work for most people.

They don't do that at my surgery.

YANBU

I used to work in a prison, so aren’t allowed your phone on you and can’t really leave the men on their own.

I asked to come in later and leave later so I could sit in the carpark and ring. It took 3 days to even get an appointment and then it was a video call which I couldn’t do!

I ended up having to take annual leave just so I could be home to make an appointment.

I have a mole that has changed shape and colour.
Its such a minor thing but I do want to get it checked out but the thought of having to go through that process all again is actually putting me off, especially for something so minor and which they’ll probably say is absolutely fine.

There has to be a better way.

No. We need significantly more people with the right qualifications and experience to work as GPs.

The efforts they went to during the mass vaccination for COVID worked because they got twenty quid per jab.

A massive restructure of the GP system is needed so you can see someone quickly as needed.

Even if you don’t work the system is a nightmare - I’ve had to call at 8, be on hold, whilst on the school run. Nowadays you do an econsult in the am, but they are triaged on a first come first served basis, so if you wait until after the school run, you are 100th in the queue… and then they call you back when you have the kids in the car at pick up. I love my kids, and encourage openness, but I really don’t want to discuss my incontinence or worsening depression and anxiety on speakerphone in the car outside the school…

ETA and then there are the continual blackspots where you lose signal, which is mindblowingly enraging if you’ve been on hold for 15mins…

Ours used to be really bad... Call in at 8, hold on for an age to get a promise of a call back. Even to make routine appointments. I didn't bother going for over 8 years as I was getting mammograms and smears through work.

When I finally went in for an appointment I was told off for not booking routine appointments at least once a year... "Just to check up on you". After I finished laughing we had a constructive discussion as to why.

They now offer out of hours appointments / phone backs for people who are also working. They are also able to make appointments over the phone after the 8 am rush. I suspect I wasn't the only person who told them that their system was not working.

Our e consult is only available in the morning regardless. And seems to close early if it reaches some type of capacity. The impression I get is that the practice can’t cope with being more contactable, and they prefer to make contact very difficult, rather than have a backlog of requests to resolve.

Who has told you that you are not allowed time off for non-urgent medical appointments? Of course you are. They may not like it, they may need to get cover, but if you need a routine appointment, you need it.

Going to the dentist or optician is different as presumably you can schedule those for the holidays, but GP and hospital appointments are when you are allocated - you don't get a choice about it.

I find this system doesn’t work for me either. I work in a prison and am regularly nowhere near a phone. The last time I requested and it was agreed that my callback would be after 5:30 but the call never came. The next day I got a text asking me to rate my experience of my non-existent appointment 🙄 So frustrating.

Mine have e consult which I love, so I fill it in & generally don’t need to be spoken to. But if I do, I get a text message with an appointment time.

The best you can get from our surgery is the date of your phone appointment, never a small range, and definitely not a specific time slot. So you have to be ready at any time from 8am to 6.30pm to take a call. It’s very difficult to manage.

Extremely few blue collar jobs work like that. They’d have to take the whole day off just to make the telephone call, with no guarantee of getting through. Loose a days pay and not get anywhere. It’s a disgrace.

I used to work in a huge open plan office and at certain times of the day, all the meeting rooms would be full of people making private calls.