How does your gp surgery work

[Cookiecrumble888]

Where I live there's a few different doctors surgeries. all of them are kind of struggling at the moment with being understaffed which I can totally understand. the one I'm at has this system where it takes about 7 weeks now for a routine appointment,or you can have a phone consultation on the same day and they decide whether you need to be seen on that day. Often they ring you back within a couple of hours and they sort it out. yesterday I really did need an appointment for an ongoing problem that's actually got worse. I phoned up at 9 in the morning and asked if a doctor could call me for a same day appointment. waited patiently until 4 and by then I had my child home from school and the kids needed tea. I called up the receptionist and asked her if I was still getting a call today as it has been 7 hours and she told me I was on the list. I explained to her that I don't drive and it's a bit far for me to come in the dark with the kids and also asked him how late the doctor could ring me. She said it could be up until 6:30 that you get a call to go down. I said ok thank you and I got off the phone and with that I noticed my son was playing on the stairs. it's not a big problem because the baby gates always closed but obviously I bring him back down when he does it as he's a toddler. literally as I picked him up from the top step I could hear my phone ringing so I rushed down the stairs put my son on the sofa and the phone rang off. I phoned up the receptionist and said to her I was literally dealing with my toddler when the phone rang and I just couldn't quite get to it in time. she's she said oh dear like I was a naughty child and then she said to me unfortunately they wouldn't try and ring me again now. I said her but I have been waiting for 7 hours and I just had to deal with my small child for a minute. she said well you can go to the bottom of the list but it's unlikely they would get back to you today. so I said what do I do then she suggested going to out of hours or ringing back tomorrow to try again. it's not something I believe the hospital need to deal with as I just need some blood test and some pills again as I feel that would be what they would do as I've been in this situation before. So basically I'm going to ring up in a minute and go back on the list.

I'm not really saying I deserve any sort of special treatment or that I deserve to be seen straight away. I understand people are much more poorly than me and appointments are hard to get now. I just think it's slightly unfair that they expect everybody to have their phones on them to answer when people are doing a variety of things with no slot when they are actually going to call. I can't have my phone in my hand for example if I'm changing a nappy or crossing a road with my pushchair. I still need to go to the toilet and sort the kitchen out and cook for my children. it seems a little bit of a rubbish system that they're doing and I know some people have moved to different surgeries.

another surgery near me you can only get an appointment by going in and waiting or going in and book it in and then going home and coming back. You can't ring that one. is starting to become a massive strain isn't it for all areas and I just wonder if it will ever get back to the standard it was before.

sometimes you fall into this category that's not that urgent but it's also not something you really should be waiting 2 months nearly to see somebody about it. Does anybody else seem to be having these problems?

Mine is similar - my problem is that I work full time and I can't get a signal on my mobile at work so I have to give them my work number. I can't have a whole day off just so that I can wait for a phone call where they may or may not offer me an appointment.

I work in an open plan office so can't really discuss my problems without everyone over hearing and secondly, if they ring back and say you've got an appointment this afternoon, I have to drive all the way back home again and then possibly back to work again, depending on the time of the appointment. Finally, last time they actually rang me back whilst I was driving from home to work and I missed the call anyway and got to work to find a post-it note on my desk that my GP had called.

Sorry, forgot this bit - last time I phoned for a non-urgent appointment I was told that they didn't have any available (not even for weeks in the future) and I should try again tomorrow!

It takes 4-6 weeks for a routine appointment where I am. Emergency ones are like gold dust and you literally have to be at deaths door for them to consider seeing you same day.
I sometimes can’t even get through on the phone and it just rings out for an hour or two.

I think a few weeks wait on a routine appointment is pretty standard now. We have the option of calling on the day for an urgent appointment but you have sit redialling for ages at 8am on the dot. There's also an open surgery a couple of mornings a week where you can sit and wait.
I got a phone consultation with a doctor within an hour of calling the other day as i'd put my back out and couldn't move, an hour later I had a prescription, I thought that was pretty good service.

We have advanced nurse practitioners. You can pretty much always get an appointment with one and I usually see the nurse for most things. They can prescribe things that have previously been prescribed by the doctor (and some things that haven't) and sort out some refferals in my area. There are a few times I've asked to see the doctor and I've been given an appointment, usually the same day its usually because I've already seen the nurse previously and I will explain this one the phone.

Our area also has started an extended hours gp service in several locations, pre-bookable evening and weekend appointments - not with your normal gp or practice. I used it recently and was very impressed.

Ours is not too bad, you can get an emergency appointment if you ring up at 8am it took an hour to get through last time or you can go through an automated booking system which will give you an appointment somewhere in the next three weeks.

Lately they have started releasing Nurse Practitioner appointments at 5.30pm for the next day so you can grab one of those quite easily but obviously only if it is not for anything major.

Small rural surgery in Scotland - can make an appointment with GP for up to 8 weeks in advance. On the day generally dealt with by a nurse practitioner or pharmacist or telephone triage .

They do ask why you’re phoning though and if they feel it’s not appropriate they won’t give you an appointment - eg UTI/thrush they expect you to try chemist and OTC stuff first before you can see someone, D&V and colds etc they won’t let you see anyone unless it’s exceptional (eg diabetes or worrying symptoms) .

That sounds very unorganised.

Mine is a massive surgery with about 10 doctors. We can book up to 4 weeks ahead either at the surgery, online or on the phone. You can usually get a same day appointment or next day if it's non urgent.

They do have a shortage of nurses so it's sometimes hard to get an appointment unless you book in advance.

You can get an on the day appt with ours usually if you ring up before 5 depending on what’s up, but have to be willing to travel to branch surgery . Think this is to take strain off absurd OOH arrangements where one poor doctor covers a minor injury unit, an inpatient ward , and a 30 mile radius for house calls .

My doctors is getting worse. Phone appointments are hard to get, nurse appointments are as hard as getting in with a GP. Online appointments are usually around 2 months away. Occasionally you get lucky and find one come up that someone has cancelled if you've got time to keep logging in and checking.
My DS needed an appointment recently for some eczema that was bothering him. Tried to treat it ourselves but nothing worked, the pharmacy wouldn't sell us anything as some of it was on his face and said we needed to see a GP. Rang the doctors and it (obviously) wasn't classed as an emergency so they wouldn't offer an emergency slot. They didn't have any same day appointments anyway and wouldn't release any next day appointments until the morning. Ring in the morning and same scenario, no same day appointments left and not classed as an emergency. I asked could I book one further ahead - no, you're looking at at least six weeks plus.
All the while I've got a self conscious teenager who's rubbing his face raw and doesn't want to go to school because everyone keeps asking what's wrong with his face. What do you do

Thanks for the replies. I'm back on the list. See what today brings. We often see a paramedic or nurse here now too and they do extended hours. Our surgery had six drs. Now it's down to 4 and can't replace the 2 it's lost. They currently only have 3 though as one has gone off for 3 weeks. ..

I'm not sure if it will ever improve again. A few years ago you could make an appointment for a weeks time.

Every morning it is open surgery for sit and wait appointments. Surgery lasts until all patients have been seen. From 3pm til 6pm are appointments that are booked in advance. Because of open surgery in the morning there isn't a long wait for a booked appointment anyway as people wanting to be seen on the day go in the morning. Two or three evenings a week there are appointments until 7.30pm specifically for people who want an appointment outside work commitments.

@keepingbees these are the situations I find the worst. Where you need help but you can't wait six weeks. It's not good is it. They need to start having weekend options in my view. I get the drs need time off but then people's health is also important. Id dread to think how much longer it takes to diagnose serious things now.

I've got bloods this afternoon so hopefully they will tell me more. Didn't speak to a Dr though. Going to a paramedic.

it drives me mad.
When DS was discharged from hospital after having his appendix out they said to make an appt with the gP to check his wound in about 3 weeks time. Knowing it takes ages to get an appt I rang them the next day to book one for 3 weeks time.l to be told they couldn’t book them that far in advance and to ring up the day before. So I did to be told no appts and to ring the next day in case of cancellation which I did to be told they could give me an appt for you guessed it 3 weeks time!!!

Our GP 'works' with 111 and some random call centre for appointments. I tried several times to get an appointment for something that had to be seen, having gone down the pharmacist route first. I was not ill, so told them that and explained when I could come, but the random call centre told me I would have to get a call back. I work in a shop, lone work quite often and can't guarantee to be able to answer the phone and don't have an office/staff room to retreat to even if I could answer. The unqualified random in a call centre then told me that clearly I didn't need to see a doctor and that my issue wasn't serious and hung up. When I managed to see a doctor a few days later (literally turned up at the surgery and got a cancellation that afternoon) the GP had never seen what I have and was furious when I reported what I had been told on the phone. I know that it isn't something I need to worry about at once and have been referred to dermatology with a 62 week wait, but that's another thread. I did manage to get a same day appointment with a nurse practitioner a couple of weeks ago when I had raging sciatica, but that was on my day off and only because I had tried everything they were initially suggesting on my call back. Our surgery has been in such a mess that questions were asked about it in the Scottish Parliament!

That sounds like an absolute farce.

Ours does a mixture of same day and routine appointments and drop in clinic at the end of morning surgery. You can also do a phone consultation and they’ll decide if they need to see you or not.

A routine appointment with my GP will take about 2-3 weeks, if you don’t need a specific GP it’s usually less than a week unless they are really busy.

@Cookiecrumble888 it's rubbish. I know they're underfunded etc but one surgery in my area has closed to new patients as they want to keep standards up. My surgery is still advertising as taking on new patients when it can't cope with what they've got. It's crazy.
I have an illness that when it flares I need antibiotics quite quickly. My GP told me to not waste time trying to get an appointment with them if it flares and to go to A&E! I'm not comfortable with that as it's exactly what they tell you not to do, and I'm very aware hospitals are overstretched as well.

@BrieAndchilli that's ridiculous when it's a follow up after surgery. Its actually discgusting! I just don't know the answer to it really. Clearly neither do they! Something surely has no change.

@littlecandle What a nightmare. It's exactly that. We can't be near a phone all day. We can try and keep it close but life gets in the way. People who work must find it impossible. Disgusting to be spoken to in such a way. I don't think they realise that we have to keep going when we are down as nobody can take over.

Our GP surgery offers the choice of an online consultation, or face to face appts with either a GP or a practice nurse. Face to face takes 3-4 days but recently I rang because I’d found a lump in my breast and my lovely GP saw me within the hour..
To be fair, as a household I think we’ve needed one appointment - other than routine tests with the nurse - in a decade so we aren’t much of an overhead for them.

@keepingbees

I know and then you get the daggers from the a&e receptionist. Once I took my child to a&e with her eyes glazed over and burning up. I said 111 said to bring her here as there's no appointments for 4 hours. With that she's ranting saying I wish they wouldnt say that...I felt like saying she's 10 months old and she's really not well. We were scared she was going to have a fit or something. Anyhow when we was seen by a nurse 20 minutes later we remained at the hospital for 7 hours whilst they kept her dosed up and did tests. They were considering keeping her in. It annoys me so much how other people's opinions can make you feel you are taking the pee.

I agree that you shouldn't have to go to hospital for things the gp normally sorts. I can kind of see why sometimes people do it now though. Sometimes what else can you do. I often let a small thing get worse because I know there's no point trying in come ways.

Very small surgery (two GPS and they alternate days and nurse only in once a week) you ring up in morning if you want an appointment that day, if you want an appt for a couple of days away you book online or on the afternoon.
Before this one I lived near a one with basically the same system but where you could only book on the day not in advance ever, you would have to ring up, tell the receptionist the issue, then a doctor would ring back later to talk about the issue but sometimes they'd have no appts left so you'd have to go through the whole thing again next day. So you could take a day off work then not even get an appt. I ended up leaving because of it, I found it awkward to explain twice on phone as I have autism and would basically never get a Drs appt as I explained myself so badly that combined with never being able to book in advance.

I’m lucky, lovely rural practice. They are only open half days as they also operate from another village part time but I can always get a same day appointment and routine appointments can easily be booked.
They hold am and pm emergency appointments at both sites, if you ring at 8.30 you get a morning one, or after 12 a pm one. Occasionally might have to drive to the other site but its rare.
I’ve just had a baby and the community midwife and GV care is fantastic. We are lucky I know.

*HV

Ours is strictly ring for the session you want to book for, on the day. Absolutely no pre-booking, if you ask you get a genuine gasp of horror and "oh no no no we don't do THAT here, no" as if you'd asked them to prescribe you some heroin So you end up phoning in the morning, sit on hold for 20 minutes, no appointments left. Repeat at 2:30. And again the following day, and the following day...it is better than it used to be, at least now you get put into a queue. Until a couple of years ago you just got cut off with a 'all operators are busy' message, one day I had to phone 40+ times just to talk to someone, and still didn't get an appointment at the end of it!