If you are a GP or work at a GP…

Ours isn't that good, but it's not bad, easy enough to get a phone triage where they then decide if you need to be seen and if so that tends to be pretty quick. My youngest was throwing a temp and very much not himself on the 23rd decembwr and after the triage phone appointment they had him in for a face to face within the hour.

Only annoying bit is the phone triage as you're not given a time for that call, but it's much less of an issue now our phones use WiFi for the phone signal

You seem to be getting the same service as we provide our patients. No idea why all practices can't offer the same.

I'm very lucky that I don't need mine very often but when I do, its for an infection that needs certain antibiotics as quickly as possible that I've had rather a lot over the past few years. So I phone up straight away, sometimes 8am, sometimes later in the day. get the usual "I'm sorry there aren't any appointments " preamble after which I explain that I don't need an appointment, I just need these specific antibiotics and explain why. Sometimes I get an appointment at a Walk In Centre later that day/evening, sometimes a telephone appointment but last time (december) I got a nurse practitioner at one of the surgeries within a couple of hours which i was very surprised about!!.

@Tubetrain that makes sense.

Our GP practice used to run this system but you had to be there by 10.30am and occasionally they would turn ppl away if they had too many waiting. Personally I thought it was a great system, though I imagine it caused aggro for reception staff if they had to manage patients demanding to be seen quicker or whatever.

Our practise is an absolute disgrace. Impossible to get an appointment and rude receptionists. I asked for clarity about the new booking system from a receptionist. There are never appointments on line so I asked if it was possible to make appointments by phone. She simple repeated the online procedure so I said that I know that but is it possible to make an appointment on line. She again repeated the online procedure and I again asked if there was an alternative. It was clear that she wasn't going to give me a straight answer and when I persevered she became very abrupt so I gave up. I then rang the other surgery in the group and asked the same question and wea given the answer straight away. Yes can phone. I did wonder if the receptionist's had been told not to give this info out ...but why I was ringing on behalf of my 93 year old mother. ..which she knew. When I finally got an appointment for myself it took a month and I was rushed in and out ..even though I hadn't seen a doctor in 5 years so hardly a 'nuisance' patient. The practise was shown as 'requiring improvement' in a recent inspection.
My husband has Glaucoma and his prescription had been changed by the hospital consultant. When the new prescription wasn't available we called into the surgery as quickest way to hurry it up. The receptionist said there was 'no record' of this new prescription. She was adamant that they hadn't received notification from the specialist ....until I produced a copy of the letter which id had for 3 weeks and which noted that as well as sending a letter to the surgery the consultant had emailed the prescription to them the day of my dh's appointment ..because it was important he started the new medication straight away. So ...they hadn't picked up the email and had filed the letter without reading it properly so it was never put before a doctor to authorize. 😱
If there was anywhere close enough I would change doctored even though I've been with the practice 35 years as it's deteriorated so much.
The think that is really irritating though is the endless message on the phone before you get to a receptionist telling us they are running on a skeleton staff and should use 111 pharmacist or anybody else before bothering them ...yet their website advertised that they can take more patients. This when they require improvement, run on a skeleton staff and can't provide a service for the patients they've got 😱
And breathe 😂😂😂 Well done if you got this far. 😁

The practice I used to go to closed down and I was transferred to another practice within the same health centre. Demographics or area plays no part in this.

The difference between the two is like night and day. I’d got so used to bad ‘service’ and thought all GP practices were run like mine.

My new GP is amazing. I can now actually get a same day appointment and I’m regularly contacted to make appointments for check ups. Who knew GP’s could offer physio, nurses, blood tests etc. all on site? Not me.

I think my old practice was manned by locums who never had a clue how the computer worked never mind the referral process or how book me in for a X-ray or scan. One time I was told to turn up at A&E for an X-ray on an old injury that had been playing up. A&E, quite rightly sent me packing right back to the GP.

It is no surprise they had to shut down. Clearly some practices are better run than others.

Isn't that sort of 'wait your turn' service now mainly provided by drop-in centres and/or Urgent TReatment Centres ?

There are factors such as patients per GP and the demographics of the population e.g. older population require more appointments on average per patient than younger population but I think often it has to do quite simply with the competence of the GP. My practice has a few GPs one is very good (and difficult to get appointments with because of that), you see her once and you get what you need from the appointment. Another is not as good and it requires multiple visits to get appropriate care, if people aren't getting appropriate diagnoses/ treatment/ referrals on the first appointment they are going to use up more GP time to get the same level of care as they'd get in less time from a more competent GP - and the condition may deteriorate in the meantime requiring extra appointments again, thus greater pressure on the practice.

Yes and geographical location is also a factor. I live in an area that is not deprived but it is rural, with poor transport links and no airport for 100+ miles. Drs do not want to work here, recruitment has been a problem for 20+ years. We had the targeted enhanced recruitment scheme to attract gp trainees and even then it was difficult. On a positive note trainees don’t struggle to gain employment once qualified. But the area is still short anyway.

No, I'm not, but every ANP I've worked with has needed to run things by a GP as well.

So far our gp practice has been outstanding..I always try to thank staff as they can feel,undervalued.

I would say our GP is very similar to yours. We submit an online form and always hear back same day, usually within 15 minutes to 2 hours via text. Urgent appointments are always in the afternoon or next day or so. Even I submitted a form last week because I have what might be a piece of glass in my foot that needs removing. My ‘non-urgent routine appointment’ was booked for 5 days later. They are really good and keep you on top of everything they’re doing behind the scenes. I also have cancer at the moment, which is being handled by multiple hospital teams, but GP has been great about doing their bit.

It’s a surgery in a rural but fairly upmarket market town though. I suspect we maybe don’t have the pressures that more resource poor practices do.

I'm a patient not someone who works in a GP surgery, but I can tell you with mine, the issue is staff turnover and money.

Everyone has less time allocated for what they need to do and people keep quitting as a result. I really like a lot of staff and it's very obvious how much pressure they are under. There's not enough money to hire enough people so existing resources are stretched.

I'm also sympathetic because you cannot work like that forever and not make a mistake. Depending on the mistake, that could cost them their career.

Generally GP surgeries in affluent areas are able to provide a good service as; they're well staffed as people want to work there, a higher percentage of patients will have health insurance reducing demand and there is a link between socioeconomic class and chronic health issues.

GP surgeries in more deprived areas may struggle to recruit and will have a higher patient demand to deal with.

It does mean there is quite inequality with the level of service people receive from GPs.

Advanced Nurse Practitioners are autonomous practitioners, qualified at masters level who can prescribe and refer, they do not need supervision from a GP. They are registered and regulated by NMC Often if they have specialist qualifications (eg diabetes, family planning, respiratory) ANPs can advise GPs.
Are you thinking of Physicians Assistants, with just two years training? All the titles and acronyms are confusing.

That's remarkable. My DS is about to turn 5 and is yet to see an NHS GP in person for his reasonably severe eczema. We had to go private to sort a proper treatment plan.

They still need some supervision - I get a query from ours most days. Yes, not as much as PAs who are dangerous in primary care.

In ours you can get an appointment relatively quickly. I'm sure cold and clear things are sorted quickly. But anything that is not fixable with medicine or cast or require futher invetigation it all goes wrong. They're very reluctant to do referrals. And when they agree to do one then it takes several weeks and it is done wrong (has to be sent back and to get the jnfor necessary), rejected or to a differnet thing that was discussed. And then in the end it had taken months and nothing is sorted and you have to pay private anyway.

Are you thinking of physicians associates? Advanced clinical practitioners / nurse practitioners have been around for over 30 years. And shouldn’t be blamed for the nhs’s / primary cares current state.

The number of GP partners at my practice has halved over the years. If I want an urgent appointment for my child it’s a nurse on the day. Last time I did that she referred for urgent blood tests and told me the I should book a gp appointment to review them at reception. Because the nurse had said the child needed one, I thought id get an appointment quickly - it was three weeks away.

Another child had a growth that needed looking at - referred to an out of hours practice covering my area, who gave an urgent referral for an x ray. It then took two months to book a follow up appointment - you need to ring at 10am to have a chance of an appointment in two weeks time (but I rang countless times over that two months and I got the first appointment I could).

it is exhausting and frustrating. As an adult I can raise an e-consult but it doesn’t work for a child.

I don’t know why the partner GPs and practice manager don’t want those things, but they don’t, or at least didn’t when I worked there. They were trying to recruit another doctor to increase appointments but money was very tight.

My own surgery also runs mostly on same-day telephone appointments but if the doctor says to book a routine follow-up they will do it.

I'm a practice nurse. I work pt. Two others work pt and two of us have less than two years to go. We don't want more hours. I want less. Our clinics are full for over a month. Yesterday I squeezed in four extra patients in the morning alone. These were urgents with chest pain for example who should have gone to A&E but came to us instead as they didn't want to go. They had to go anyway in the end.
Everyone's default is 'see your GP' or 'see the practice nurse'. Day after day we are full. GP clinics are full. Predominantly of elderly people regularly attending with several complex co-morbidities and often in poor health.

@Merryoldgoat I recently had to change surgeries due to a move. In my experience, the new one, which everyone raved about to me, is nowhere near as well-run as the previous one unfortunately. GPs are private businesses that have a contract with the NHS. Being a good GP doesn’t necessarily mean they have project management skills or business acumen. Both had GPs and Practice Nurses; in fact both use some of the same ‘part time’ GPs (which seems quite common - to be clear, this new surgery is not oart of the same practice group - it is completely separate). The previous GP surgery I could always get a same day appointment in an emergency but it’s only very recently that the current one has changed its processes to offer something similar. It still hasn’t switched on on-line appointment booking which the previous surgery offered and it infuriates me (I can at least still order prescriptions online, freeing up the phones).

Where do you live?
Because here, in my LA where there has been 17,000 new houses in the local plan for a ten year period - with not a single additional doctor surgery, hospital expansion or even a school - I’d say that is what is having a massive impact on the existing GP surgeries and their ability to manage.

Ours used to be like that. Then they merged.

Mine was great until they merged. Maybe that's the problem, like schools going down the pan as they merge into large academy trusts, the same is happening to GP surgeries.
Although the population increase doesn't help either. My local town has increased from 118k to 132k in just 10years (2011-2021 census results) and guess how many addition GP surgeries have been build to accommodate these extra people? Yep, none.