I am a very experienced, fully trained nurse, with many years experience, working in the UK, as well as other countries.
@LaCerbiatta was correct - I would have told @MeMyBooksAndMyCats to call an ambulance and go to ED because the symptoms she has described, are more dangerous because she’s an asthmatic!
To anyone who has a cough and starts to cough up dark flecks, regardless of asthma, presence of mucous or anything else that might spring to mind - call an ambulance and only take yourself to ED, if the wait time is >30 minutes.
To anyone who feels a crushing weight in the middle of their chest - call an ambulance and only take yourself to ED, if the wait time is > 15 minutes.
To anyone who is febrile, with a heart rate <50 or >100 - call an ambulance and well, you know the drill.
Only make your own way to ED, if you have someone who knows you well, to drive you.
Pharmacists are great for advising about medications and minor ailments but they are not clinically trained to take observations, they don’t know at what point something goes from “keep an eye, this may develop into something” to “fcuk, this is a met call and we need a team now!”
Doctors and nurses spend a lot of time getting taught about signs of clinical deterioration whilst training, post registration and as part of yearly clinical training in the hospitals they work in. Not because we’re all idiots who don’t know anything, but because best practices change over time and we have to be able to make decisions quickly and then accurately feedback to any attending team, who might have never seen the patient before.
GP receptionists are just that - receptionists. They usually have little medical training, zero triage training and, I’ve found in the UK at least, are paid to gate-keep for the surgery! It may well sound like a good idea to call the GP surgery, vent your spleen on the receptionist and then threaten to complain, but please try to remember, they do as they are told, they don’t make the rules and 9/10 they probably don’t like having to arbitrarily enforce them!
Unfortunately, as OP found, receptionists often have to make arbitrary decisions about appointments. Because they have to do as instructed by the GP. Don’t be fooled when the GP says “hmm, well, I never told them not to give out the free appointments for this afternoon”. Er, yeah, yeah you did. Because most GP’s like to have at least one afternoon appointment for emergencies.
The other issue is that some people do lie about the urgency of their condition, which puts more stress on the receptionists to gate-keep more strenuously.
Even turning up at the GP surgery might not work, because I remember the case of a lady dying in the waiting room of a Staffordshire ED waiting room some years ago, with nurses doing triage - GP receptionists aren’t qualified to do triage.
The northern hemisphere winter of 2017/2018, a relative of mine, who was eligible for the free bus pass, was extremely sick. She texted me and said she could barely move, was in bed with the heating and an electric blanket on having cold sweats and the GP surgery had told her there were no appointments that week!
I ended up calling the GP surgery from where I now live, got through and explained the situation to the receptionist who told me the same. At the time, it was maybe midday or just before in the UK and I explained to the receptionist that not only was I calling from a different country in a different timezone, but that I was also, by this time, in a different day! I explained that I was a nurse, that I was seriously concerned about my relative’s health and that if anything happened to my relative then I would make sure that the BMA heard about the complete disregard of duty of care that the GPs at that surgery had. I also reassured her that I didn’t blame her. She then said that she could see I was calling from an international number (apparently it came up as international on the phone display) and told me that she would call me back! She did call me back and she spoke to one of the GP’s who agreed to make a home visit. I called my relative back, explained that the GP would make a home visit and she started crying - she said home visits aren’t done anymore in the UK!
So whilst I believe that the OP really couldn’t get an appointment, I don’t think blaming reception staff is the way forward. The receptionist I spoke to that day thought I might have been calling from Eire or somewhere similar and she was apologetic at first when explaining but was never rude or dismissive and really shocked that I’d called from so far away!