What's your experience when it comes to getting GP appointments? And other questions...

That's after they've updated their computer YET AGAIN about stuff they ask you every few months, like "Have you ever smoked?" Does the computer delete all your answers every now and again, so they have to start all over again? You go in, feeling really ill and possibly upset, and they start right in about your non-existant smoking habit. By the time they've finished with all that, you are feeling very very much worse, and certainly somewhat irascible.

I forgot that Molly - our surgery has posters on the wall saying that if you want to ask the doctor about more than one thing you must have a double appointment, but they refuse point blank to ever give anyone one.
The doctors themselves also just blank anything relating to anything that isn't the first thing you mention iyswim.

The GP deals at face value with whatever presenting problem is sat in front of them at that moment in time with no perception of whole person, previous history, nothing. It's the same relationship I have with the person behind the fish counter at Tesco - this is so true.

There is also absolutely no cross-referencing like "in possession of an insane husband" or "has two dc with major health issues".

We all need a guide to "How to make sense of your GP consultation"

The current NHS websites say, for example, that you can ask for a double appointment if you need one.

Well, you can ask, but you won't get. Not at the surgery we go to.

Virgin bought my local gym...and it went bust.

The ten minute appointments are clearly not long enough for some situations. I wonder where all the GPs will come from to cover 8-8, 7/7, or whatever the latest political gesturing is.

Also, people who say they only need 3-5 minutes, add to that the time needed to type in the notes, or to scan through the notes before the appointment, as the GP won't know what you come for so a quick look, read through last letter or so, still needed.

I honestly can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading on this thread.

My practice has been bought out by Virgin, as an exciting central corporate (add lots of claptrap) ..... I feel like saying 'nuff said.

Their shiny website explains that everyone who rings on the day is seen. NO. Everyone who manages to get a call through between 8-10am when the phonelines are permanently jammed and engaged is seen on the day. The many people who are unable to get through are not logged or recorded. I rang in twice lately. I have a severe chronic pain condition which I manage myself. (Have never received any GP support or management for this; am never asked how it is going when I visit for an appointment, my bp/heart rate although can reach ambulance levels due to another chronic condition, have never once been checked, medication has been prescribed that actively aggravates the condition without the GP realising or reading the computer notes) I reached the point of pain so out of control I was sobbing, I rang to ask for an appointment, they had a slot available in two weeks. I took that slot. It was cancelled two days prior to the appointment due to issues with GP absence cover, they could not offer another appointment.

I rang again more recently with severe cystitis, needing antibiotics. The phone was engaged from 8am-10.45. (Literally. I sat there pushing the redial button constantly for nearly 3 hours.) When I got through, the appointments were gone. The receptionist agreed I needed to see a GP for antibiotics and leaving an infection for 24 hours to get worse was really not a good idea, but could offer option 1: try playing phone lottery again tomorrow (you may not win then either) or 2: go to A&E.

I have pointed out that having to phone from 8-10am constantly in the vain hope of being one of the lucky ones who gets through means anyone who has to work for a living is probably unable to do this. (plus be available to drop everything and take a return call from the doctor at any time during the day the doctor is able to do so). Also that anyone really unwell and in need is not going to be up to the battle of the fittest to fight for an appointment and will give up, as I did, and muddle through by messing with their medication and what advice they can glean on the internet with no idea if what they're trying is safe.

The consultant I see at the hospital keeps 'discharging me back to GP care'. Don't make me laugh. There is zero communication or continuity of care between the GP and hospital. Absolutely none. The GP practice won't even carry out prescriptions issued by the consultant THEY referred me to. The GP deals at face value with whatever presenting problem is sat in front of them at that moment in time with no perception of whole person, previous history, nothing. It's the same relationship I have with the person behind the fish counter at Tesco. I don't think this is their choice or preference, I think it is the state of the situation they are being left to deal with. And my surgery DESPITE openly admitting they are failing patients and turning them away WITH significant need to see a GP because they have more patients than GP slots are STILL advertising for new patients!

Words fail.

I've stayed with my gp despite moving house 2 miles away because I like the 'open surgery'. Every morning you can turn up between 9 and 12, join the queue and patients are seen in order of arrival. For anything longer than 5 minutes you have to book an appointment in the afternoon, which does get booked up, but TBH I've never needed more than about 3 minutes. You can also ring between 12.30 and 1 and speak to the doc on the phone.
It's not ideal putting all the ill people in the waiting room together, and you do have to wait about an hour, but you can see a doctor the same day which is the main thing.

Mine seems really patchy
I can get an emergency Dr appointment fairly easily. 8am ring, wait in a phone queue. They give you a slot.
I do this about once every two years.
Further out appointments for contraception, smears with the nurse seem to be harder. But I think that's because they lost a nurse and got a new one.
They seem to be totally baffled that I work in the next town and giving me an appointment at 11.30 isnt helpful.

The surgery I was at was terrible.
They said phone at 8.30am, then the phone would be engaged until 9am and they would say you were too late and all the appointments had gone, try again tomorrow.
On at least two occasions this went on for over a week and I ended up in A&E.
The icing on the cake was when I went to an emergency walk in clinic, in tears and in pain, and basically suicidally depressed and with an open wound that needed to be assessed to see if it needed stitiching. The doctor there said that I needed ongoing programme of treatment and the best thing would be to go to my GP so I could have my own doctor supervise the treatment over time etc. Anyway the emergency doc phoned and had to demand an appointment for me, and when I arrived, my own GP took one look at me, without even asking what was wrong, was verbally abusive and told me in no uncertain terms that there was "nothing wrong with me except I was fat" and to "go away and don't come back until I lost four stone" and ushered me out of his office.
The following day I had a heart attack and went into cardiac arrest.
Needless to say I now have a different GP and they are "so so" for getting appointments.
We still have to go in person to the surgery and join the queue at 8.30 am to get an appointment though. Phoning is no good because they hand out the appts to the people in the queue before they begin to answer the phones.
Since I have 3 DCs still at school, if it is a school day I either get someone else to do the school run, or get someone else to go queue for me - luckily this has always been manageable so far, and we have never not been able to get in when we really needed to.
Quite why they can't just let us book an appointment is beyond me though - things like renewing repeat prescriptions, or contraception and suchlike, where people must see the doctor in person, but there's no urgency as such, and want a convenient appt for after work or whatever.
It's even worse for DH because he has to either go to work late, having phoned to tell them he is trying to get in to see a doc, then leave again later for the appt, or phone from work on his mobile which costs a fortune, and then leave at short notice.
Not everyone wants or needs an immediate same day short notice appointment and it just causes unnecessary stress and bad feeling trying to force people into the current ridiculous system.

2 week wait here (12 drs in the practice, and you can see anyone you want)

I called this am as I think my dd needs blood test done. Was told to ring at 10 to speak to a dr. Since if was 9.58 I asked could I just be out on hold, but no. So 2 mins later I call... And try 27 times before I get through. The girl takes my number and says dr will call me back between then and 1pm. why not just take my number at 9.58?! ANYWAY, I get the call mid dirty nappy change so can't answer. But they don't try to get you again, so now I have to wait til tomorrow and start all over again, and be unable to leave my phone for a second. Arrrghh!

One time I just called in as I was having chest pains. They had been recurring, pass within a few hours, but excruciating and extremely scary. I had been to drs and they couldn't find anything wrong because " we really need to see you when its sore". So I dropped in, barely able to stand, breathe etc and I sit waiting in tears for 2 hours in waiting room to be seen, not taking pain relief as per dr. Then nurse puts me on ECG as the pain is subsiding and leaves me a further hour.... Pain subsided by the end of the monitoring session and then dr sends me home without seeing me as he needed to see me while I was in pain.
Thankfully whatever it was hasn't happened in nearly 2 years.

Overall, not a great impression of the unit.

I just ring about 8 & get an appointment for later that day if i need it or whatever day I want.

When I've had an emergency with unwell kids they just tell me to bring them right in & get seen right away.

If unable to get to surgery a Dr will come out if needed.

Our current surgery (in the south west) can be tricky. If you don't get through at 8.30 sharp then it can be anything from 7-14 days for an appointment. They only have one GP on duty at a time though as our surgery is a distant outpost of a practice in town. In some cases they allow the smaller practice patients to go to the big shiny surgery in town - but the reception there is often hostile at best towards this! I have more recently found that calling and asking for a telephone appointment is easier for most things. The practice is also closed on Wednesday afternoons which can be a hassle. It would be much better if there was funding to cover more than one GP in the practice.
My previous practice (in the north east) was wonderful! Lots of GPs and nurses in every day meant that, providing the call was before lunch, a same day appt was guaranteed. They also had on site counsellors, health visitors and OT so it was a real one stop shop! More practices like this would be good.

Our surgery has a drop in clinic every morning, it starts at 7.30am and ends at 10.30am. If you arrive before 10.30am you are guaranteed to be seen. We have had instances of waiting for about an hour to be seen in the winter but recently have been seen very quickly.

There are also bookable appointments in the afternoons but we haven't used this service. Despite the issue of sometimes waiting for a long time in reception with grumpy baby I think this works well as you know you will be seen on the day you want to go and you can get in before work if you go early.

My GP Surgery is excellent, i can phone at 8:30 for an on the day appointment if their really busy and can't give me an appointment they get a Dr to phone back later. All none urgent appointments are within a week. It is a very small practice though and i get the feeling the GP whom set it up went for having a smaller number of patients whom he could give quality care too.

I feel strongly that there needs to be a way for patients to find out about changes to the GP service. When GPs stop doing something, like syringing ears, patients aren't told, but the surgery will get very cross with you for not knowing that a service you've had all your life from them is strictly not on offer. It's outrageous, apparently, to expect them to syringe your ears as they have been doing all your life. How the hell are we supposed to find out about these changes? And in particular there should be transparency about targets/QOFs or whatever incentive schemes for doctors are called these days, so we know when we're annoying our GP by not boosting his income.

It's interesting what thegreylady says about ShropDoc, her OOH phone line. We used to have similar, called ThamesDoc, that we could call OOH, get triaged and find out from the triage nurse or doctor if it was worth coming in to the OOH centre. They would then make an appt for you at the OOH centre to so you didn't have to wait for hours. But ThamesDoc has now been dismantled and we're told to call NHS Direct, or 111 as it's now known, instead. Absolutely useless. They take hours to call back, and can't book you an appt at the OOH clinic, so it's easier just to go to the OOH clinic and join the 4-hour queue.

Hopeless trying to ring for an appointment, they have always gone by the time I get through. The online booking is good but at least 2 weeks in advance and of course you may be dead or better by then. If fact this reminds me, I had better see if I can book an appointment for 3 weeks time.

At my GP you need to ring in the morning wait on hold for 45mins from 8 o clock. Give a brief description of your problem and if you're deemed worthy the dr will ring back at some point in the day to give advice or make an appointment to see them.

When I was pregnant with DS I was able to get a referal to the hospital without having to take the morning off work, the GP rang back and we done it over the phone and paper work to sign was popped in the post.

With the DC it is hard to get an appointment. The return call is usually missed during the school run. So the whole process has to be started again, usually he following day. I now use a local nurse led walk in centre, or for DS who is under 1 a weekend GP led walk in service.

My experience has been the exact opposite of Scousadelic's. I had so much trouble with small GP practices that I deliberately registered with a large practice when I moved house.

With the small practice I struggled to get most of my travel imms and, later, dc's imms done, because - despite making appointments with the nurse - when I turned up the imms could not be done because the GP was not in the premises. Or I could not get a repeat scrip from a locum. Or I could not get a second opinion or talk to a different doctor.

None if these have been a problem with the large surgery. Everything is run more efficiently. I have only once had to see a locum - not that I have anything against them, the locum a at my previous surgery were often better than the GP herself. I can cherry-pick which GP I see, and find one I feel comfortable with, etc.

But I do worry a teeny bit that it might be such a succeed up practice that it will over-reach itself.

My GP receptionists are great, but not miracle workers. Since two partners quit, they've had constant trouble keeping enough GPs and thus a nightmare trying to offer appointments.
You can book online, but only once a GP ornurse has confirmed they will work those days, so sometimes there's none listed. Getting through on the phone is a nightmare as Ringback never works and BT keep saying it's not their fault, and 8.15 is the same time as I have to get out of the house to get kids to nursery/school so calling is impossible as TextRelay isn't available on mobiles.

If I do contact them, and say "it's my baby/child" they do try to at least have a doc callwithin the hour and often an appt, and the docs are great at taking time for patients, but 15,000 patients need more than 3 full-time equivalent doctors.

If I need to see Dr urgently, I phone up in the morning, then nurse phones me back. She's always told me to come in the same day. A non urgent appointment is around 2 weeks.

My surgery has always been really good in the past, but lately it seems to be harder to get quick apts. this could be to do with the influx of new people to the town as it's being developed really fast, with new surgeries not yet built to accommodate the newer folk, who knows?

I rang them this week hoping to get an apt for Wednesday next (my day off), but they were all booked for the next fortnight.

Our surgery is great, we are always seen on the day for an emergency, soon after if not.

I work in the NHS and my work experience suggested that the larger the GP practice, the harder it is to get a good service so when we moved here I enrolled the family with a one doctor practice and it is the best NHS practice we have ever known or could ever find.

A while back a friend locally was having a problem with her large surgery (rang to order a prescription for antidepressants which she knew she must not stop suddenly, was told she needed to see GP before prescription, no appointments available for weeks, no prescription till see GP, etc, etc) She changed to my GP who had everything sorted within days. She said our surgery changed her whole view of general practice and delivered more good service for her and her family in one week than the larger one had in years.

Sadly the NHS is intent on creating super-practices which may be good for cost savings and some forms of efficiency but I don't believe it is good for patients. Our GP is in his late 50s and I dread the day he retires as I know our practice will close and we will be directed to one of the bigger local surgeries

You do have to ring from 8 a.m. to get an urgent appointment. It is harder at the beginning of the week. I will be very fair on my surgery as I think the partner doctors are all excellent - as I have a long term chronic illness if I request to see a partner "who knows my history" I usually do get an appointment with one. If they can't sometimes they say ring tomorrow and they will then fit me in.

When my mum was seriously ill they would visit at home, and ring in between. If they hadn't got through to her they would ring me to check. When she was in hospital they visited and even organised counselling when she was in hospital.

We had been planning to move house to an area just outside our doctors' surgery for various other reasons. Due to fears over delayed appointments and having to go through triage, it has been a priority in making the decision not to actually move.