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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what using your GP is like (trying to work out if mine is typical)

107 replies

HealthRobinsonCrusoe · 08/12/2024 10:43

I can only make an appointment by phoning at 2pm. There's no online booking system. All the appointments are gone by 210pm. When they run out you just have to try again tomorrow.

This includes when they have texted you to tell you to make an appointment (otherwise they might stop repeat prescriptions).

There are no in person appointments except to see a nurse for samples. They call you over the course of a morning or afternoon. So you can't just take a short break from work.

They don't do shared care agreements. They don't recognise private diagnosis for prescribing so you have to go in the nhs waiting list before you can get treatment.

When they register new patients it's Tuesday mornings only. First 25 people only. You have to queue outside to physically collect a form. People go away disappointed.

The prescriptions are quite often wrong. When you try to phone to get them fixed you're cast into the chaos of the appointments system.

So aibu to think they're spectacularly awful jokers getting rich on suffering? Or is this pretty typical? It feels humiliating and scary dealing with them.

I'm in Edinburgh so I'd love to know if England/elsewhere in Scotland is better. Seriously thinking about moving because I feel like I've essentially no one to go to if I get seriously ill.

OP posts:
chipsandpeas · 08/12/2024 10:58

im in west lothian but it will still come under the same NHS board i believe

i phone at 8am for an appointment and after telling the receptionist a brief summary i will get either a telephone appointment or offered a face to face appointment with the best person suited to my issue so sometimes will be the mental health nurse or someone with knowledge of HRT

a lot can be done on their website like repeat prescriptions, new sicklines, HRT requests etc

Timeforabiscuit · 08/12/2024 10:58

Mine is nothing like that, can call anytime and the phone is answered, there is an 8am scramble for same day appointments, but there's the option of Livi online appointment which has been brilliant.

The repeat prescription is via NHS app, any prescription issues I can call up the prescription desk to reissue (might take a day to sort if there isn't a GP to sign off there and then).

Have needed to wait a month for a specialist appointment as the was only one nurse who could do pediatric ear syringe - but as DD wasn't in too much pain this was fine.

Overall I'm really really happy!

PoppySeedBagelRedux · 08/12/2024 10:58

We apply using an online form describing our symptoms. We get triaged and a call back. I've recently had a couple of same-day appointments as a result, and a one a month in the future - which was fine as it wasn't urgent.

It works very well for me. I don't know how it works for people who can't use the online form.

We used to have to ring, waiting for ages, and then get called back. The current system is far better.

Norder · 08/12/2024 10:56

I'm also in Scotland and there are similarities.
It is also very difficult to get an appointment - we have recently been told that on the day appointments are for medical emergencies only, everything else needs to be pre-booked with at least a week to wait before you're seen. I did ask where I should go for primary care that wasn't an emergency and they couldn't answer.
Funnily, I did call with ongoing chest pains, NHS online advice said to see a GP immediately with my symptoms. No word of a lie, I was told it wasn't considered urgent, but should it become severe and if I developed numbness or pain in my arm(s), to call 999. I actually laughed and asked if I was being told to wait until I was having a heart attack to be seen, and was told, essentially, yes! Luckily it wasn't that (although I am now undergoing tests with cardiology), but it does seem like many surgeries are just leaving you to suffer until it's life threatening.

Original poster
HealthRobinsonCrusoe · 08/12/2024 10:56

I guess a good reason to get your kids into medicine - so they can prescribe you things!

OP posts:
Original poster
HealthRobinsonCrusoe · 08/12/2024 10:55

,😭 they pretend to care if sickness is "interfering with your ability to work" but it's rubbish - systems are set up to exclude working people until they either get better on their own (often by paying for it) or get really seriously unwell and can't work any more.

I just can't imagine what other business would be allowed to operate this way and they're handed a gold plated monopoly contract.

OP posts:
Sadcafe · 08/12/2024 10:52

Sounds dreadful, in fairness to our GP, there’s always the 8am scramble for appointments, but providing you navigate that you will get an appointment with someone, depending on the issue, that day, if they ask you to make an appointment for bloods etc, you can ring anytime and they arrange it within the next two weeks, never had an issue with prescriptions, but GPs definitely vary, our daughter lives a few miles away, she’s been trying for over a month to make an appointment for a repeat prescription, they only have emergency appointments available on a morning, it’s not an emergency and everything else gets an appointment often a month in advance but never after the 5pm she really needs for work purposes as they are harder to get, she’s asked what people who work are supposed to do and just gets told keep trying, now at the point where she apparently has to go to her pharmacy and request an emergency prescription as the GP can’t issue it

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