Called GP at 8. Guess my position in the queue?

I got a call back at 8.30 am and it was the receptionist. GP appointment face to face Thursday, sick note extended post surgery for work until April.

OMG 72! Our GP has a wingback service when it gets too far in a queue and you don't even lose your place. Consider myself lucky now.

I did an econsult on Friday and someone rang after 10 minutes and we saw a doctor an hour later.
i do hate the econsult - too many irrelevant questions but we always get seen fast.

That’s all lovely and easy to say when you have the means to do this but many people do not!

This is what I absolutely loathe about the new system. I find it hugely stressful not knowing whether I'll get an appointment, and if I'm unwell it's intolerable.

Why can they not have a system for chronic/non-urgent conditions?

Please explain Scotland in that case! Every bit as crap but no NHS app and the only online service my GPs offer is repeat prescriptions. It has taken me two months to get an appointment with my regular GP in the recent past. Oh, and the nearest private GP is 50 miles away and not taking any new patients.

89, I've been that before in the queue

You can’t ring our GP at all now, only online triage for everything, appointments, prescriptions, admin queries.
It’s fine for me, but there was an older lady nearly in tears at the desk trying to make an appointment last time I was there and they wouldn’t budge. You’d think they'd make exceptions in times of crisis.

Fyi you don't need to wait for the machine to finish it's "press 1 for..."etc. you can press the numbers as soon as it answers if you know which one you need.

ours has gone over completely to the triage form method. It’s brilliant here and everyone seems happy. I rarely need to see a gp face to face but have seen practice nurse, community pharmacist, paramedic, phlebotomist, first line physio and had telephone gp appointments. I’ve recently returned to work after long term sick and it’s been really easy to be signed off (awaiting and then recovering from surgery that I had privately as two years to wait for the surgery was madness). Today I’ve done the form to ask for a load of medication, they won’t put them on a repeat for some reason, but happy to respond to the request, send my prescription to pharmacy2u and I will have them through the door by the end of the week.

I do use my Bupa for gp appointments if I need to get a referral, I’ve got top level cover and it’s so easy. I also now use private physio as the difference between nhs and private was insane. Services are cut to the bone.

My go only takes requests via the app, if you can’t use the app the reception sends the request for you so you will be behind all those who sent them from 6pm the day before. The app system is excellent though, you often get a reply on a Sunday afternoon events can’t complain

My gp surgery has the phone at 08.00 for on the day appointments but you can phone any time for a non urgent appt.
They have an online appt booking service but there are never any slots.
They have an online consult system which is excellent.
So overall, they are good.
Absolute nightmare for repeat prescriptions though. It is just a lucky dip essentially.

I've not had any problem with contacting my GP via the app and usually get called within a morning....

Bloody hell, this is awful, how has it got so bad? I'm another who isn't in the UK and the health service here is far from perfect but we do at least get to see someone within the appropriate timeframe.

I was on this morning at 8.30 am cos that’s when they open and was 112 in thr queue when I eventually got through no appointments to be had. So I have to do the same tomorrow cos they won’t give me an appointment next week cos for me it’s not an emergency.

Even a telephone call next week would be good too but no I have to phone again.

4 days I’ve done in the past just to get an appointment.

Everyone has to put up with that, my gp has an app, not a very good one where you can set up days and times you are available so you make an appointment and then you get an unsuitable appointment and have to ring anyway, I can't be bothered

Ours are usually over 50 in the queue for triage and to make routine appointments.
It is such a dreadful service and very frustrating.

Heaven knows what's going on with our GP practice. If you go in and ask for an appointment you get told to go home and make it online. But the appointment will be by phone.

DH was there for a blood test last Monday morning and he said the place was empty and the receptionists were sitting around chatting. Previously in the morning the place would be really busy, but these days no-one can see a doctor.

DH was really ill for about six weeks last year (sepsis) and never actually saw a doctor in all that time, and it all seemed really hit and miss when they lost a blood test, someone prescribed the wrong medicine, and then a doctor picked up the mistake and rang us on a Saturday to tell him to urgently stop taking the meds that had been prescribed. They seem to be struggling since people who just seem keen to make the most possible profit took over.

I dread actually needing a doctor.

My old GP surgery was the same, highest I ever had was 108 I don’t even bother waiting in the queue. I was 28th the next day and when I got through they told me they only had emergency appointments left “you know for heat attacks and stoke symptoms”
I did actually get an appointment after I pointed out that surely anyone phoning with those symptoms should be told to call an ambulance as that’s a not something that can wait 8hours to be assessed.
thankfully my new surgery has an online consultation thing and it’s a far easier process

But UK people could absolutely pay for a private GP appointment and have the same service as in Ireland

I think the trick is to know what option you need for appointments. For example I know ours is always option 1. So as soon as the call connects and I hear the automated message, I press 1 and skip all the listening to options, repeat as needed if yours has multiple steps, make a note of them somewhere. Our GP surgery has a callback option too so once it saves your place in the queue you can hang up and they'll call you when you get to the front which is better if you're also trying to usher the kids out the door to school of similar!

The last time I called, which granted was a couple of years ago, wouldn’t accept anymore calls if there were more than 50 already in the queue. But to find out that it was just going to hang up on you, you had to listen to the 90 seconds of info before it would tell you there were no positions left in the queue and then disconnect. So frustrating!

Absolutely, some very poor hospitals but some great ones too. The differentiator seems to be private vs public in almost every instance. I’ve had one experience of a public hospital and it was fine. Private hospitals are generally good. Food across both remains shite, for some reason.

I did post the costs in my second post. I have health insurance paid by my employer so my personal cost to access private healthcare is exceptionally low. There are good tax rebates on out-of-pocket costs. Most people I know in professional careers have private health insurance through their employer, and most schemes cover spouses and dependent children.

I’m not saying the Irish system is amazing. In fact, I think there are very few countries who do have excellent health systems that provide good value, efficiency, and patient-centric care but I do think there’s an “NHS at all costs” narrative in the UK when a lot of people are very ignorant to the alternatives.
And very defensive about it 😉

Have you seen the state of your hospitals honestly I don’t think your system is anything to post about. And you declined to say how much you have to pay.

No matter what time you ring my local surgery and how extremely busy they are, it always says you're 'number 1 in the queue' 😡

You may have to hold for 45 minutes and there'll be no appointments left, but at least you're number 1...