Any GP surgery managers or admins about

[DoraSpenlow]

Can someone please explain to me the logic of the same day appointment system?

I have tried for the last 5 days to get an appointment. I am expecting that it will not be face to face initially even though it is something that needs to be looked at. I have even called in at the surgery only to be told I need to make an appointment for a phone consultation and can only book this by phone. By the time I get through, I must have spent more than 2 hours all told, there are no appointments, so ring again tomorrow. Ask My GP is currently suspended and has been since the middle of December.

Why can't I be given an appointment, even if it is in two or three weeks time? Surely, judging by the number of times I have got through only to be unsucessful, and I'm I sure loads of people are doing the same, surely it just increases the workload for the staff by many, many times. If you can just ring once and get an appointment it wouldn't be necessary for multiple calls.

I just don't understand why it is this way. I know my surgery aren't the only ones.

At the moment (since mid December) they are only making appointments for urgent cases. I have had this issue since mid December and now need it looking at.

I would really appreciate an expanation of why his system has been chosen by so many surgeries.

On another thread they are wondering why there are so many excess deaths at the moment. Maybe because we can't get a sodding appointment!!

A family member was told to phone 111. It seems they can book appointments with your surgery! Worth a try.?

I had this so I just got to my surgery as it opened at 8am and asked them to make me an appointment
It worked but I've complained as it's ridiculous

It's even more boggling since other surgeries appear to be able to manage this better.

I do feel incredibly lucky - mine reserves about two hours per doctor per day which are made available that morning for online and phone booking. I've only ever taken at most two days to get in that way, and almost always with my own doctor rather than someone else at the practice.

Booking in advance is also possible but tends to be two weeks out for GPs unless you get a cancellation or something. Other stuff like bloods and vaccines are generally same week.

If my surgery can do it, it's hardly beyond the bounds of possibility that others could also do something similarly effective.

Do they offer EConsults? They are then generally added to a GP’s list to contact the patient to discuss their issue.

It's not a good system but I think the logic is that appointments booked urgently will be attended. Huge volumes of advance appointments are DNA'd.

Our GP surgery has only stopped the same day appointment system in the past few weeks. Probably after lots of similar complaints. They now have different types of appointments which you can book. Routine appointments which can be a couple of weeks away. More urgent, but not emergency appointments which are available within the next 48 hours. And emergency appointments on the same day. Seems sensible as we all have different reasons for needing to see the GP, sometimes it's urgent, and sometimes it's something that can wait a while.

Call 111. My dh has had to do this today after not getting through on the 8am line. Spent an hour on hold and said he needed an appointment with 12 hours and they could book one directly with his surgery. The GP called about 2 hours later, blood test arranged and prescription at the nominated pharmacy to collect. Not ideal but he did get an appointment.
111 can book local community or urgent care appointments too.

Maybe just sheer number of appointments. If you have 300 appointments available in a day but know you will have 600 requests for urgent on the day appointments and the only way to get through them is for the GPs to work from 7am until 10pm, then would you choose to use up 150 of the appointments on non urgent things? If it makes no difference to the 600 urgent appointments because most of the non urgent things will have got better by then anyway? You can juggle appointments anyway you like, if the demand is twice the supply the system isn't going to work.

Can you do online access? Ours have pre-bookable appts on there. Or you can email them.

If they are constantly rubbish I would change, you can review them online I think.

They are phone appts here, guess they just ring the next one in that case.

It's totally up the the surgery. About a third of our appointments are pre bookable.

E-consult (Ask my GP) suspended last December.