to expect there not to be 11 people in front of me when I arrive at my appointment on time

[June2008]

I went to take dd2 to have her third set of vacs today, arrived a couple of minutes before her appt time, checked in, only to be told that there were still 11 babies to be seen before her.

AIBU to expect not to have to wait 40 mins after the appt time, without a seat (because they're all taken) with a four month old to be seen by the nurse?

Made even worse by the fact that I had dd1 with me (2 1/2 yrs) who needed entertaining too, as at the moment I have no-one to look after her. Grrrrr.

What should have been a 25 min outing took nearly 90 mins.

I had a 9.30am drs appointment recently, got seen at 10.10am. HTF can a dr run so far behind that early in a morning?

I know, I know, there may have been an emergency, but I doubt it, the woman doesn't have a rush in her.

Changed drs surgery now as it happened too many times.

YANBU.

Yabu you don't know what's happened? I was late seeing the nurse a few weeks ago because the man in front of me had a heart attack so it was all hands to the pump so to speak.

I walked out of a vac appointment as I had to pick up DD1 from school. I told the receptionist that I couldn't wait any longer than the 30 mins I had already waited. She got really shirty about it and told me off for wasting an appointment. I laughed in her face as I walked out the door!

Memoo, they book 6 babies into a 15 min slot. This is the seventh time I have taken the girls for vacs and it just gets worse each time. Last time it was 25 mins late. Even the receptionist was sympathetic. There is no way the nurse can get a baby in, confirm the details, write in the red book and give the vacs in 2 1/2 mins. No way.

YANBU Ohhh... one of my pet hates. That's the same here - you get the slip of paper from child services saying 1040am and what a surprise everyone's got the same time.

From experience I ignore the time on the paper and show up half an hour before the clinic arrives. Yes you have to bugger about amusing the children for the extra but you'd be waiting regardless and as it ends up being first come first served you get in and out pretty quickly.

Hospitals also just can't seem to be honest about appointment times. One specialist hospital round here you might ask for the first appointment of the day at 830am or whatever, three months ahead, but what they don't say is that about 10 other people also have that slot and you'll end up queuing in a "room to room" dance regardless... they pulled the same stunt at the hospital I gave birth at for antenatal appointments.

I wouldn't mind if they were just honest that it is a slot not a definite time - then people could plan accordingly.

Unless you were told that there had been an emergency, (which I know does happen) then I would have left and made a new appointment.

My midwife was always running late so unless you had the first appointment of the day you would have to wait. This however was because she was expected to deal with too many patients in one session and therefore the smallest complication (like me going very grey every time I had to have blood taken ) impacted everyone else after me.

Surgerys need more staff but don't have enough money to pay them.

I was first appointment at the dentist once with DD1 when she was 2.

The dentist turned up 45 minutes after my appointment time, which I later found out was not unusual.

Went in, settled down and the child just would not opem her rootingtooting mouth.

Gave it up for a bad job in the end.

AAAaaargh.

The doctors have targets to meet for vacs. I'd have gone to the desk after 30 minutes to ask for another appointment.

I regularly wait for an hour to see my doctor for an appointment. Trouble is, he is very good and definitely the best there. So I put up with it, but allow for it in my planning and take a book or something with me.

However for simple stuff such as ear infections, etc. I go to the gp collaborative drop in place as it is quicker. But for things where my health history is important I sit it out.

Hmmmm, well as a GP who is fairly sympathetic and tends to collect the somewhat time consuming patients, I can see the other side. I often run late, I think my patients accept if they then need the time I will give it to them. Sometimes, believe it or not, emergencies do happen, though heart attacks and collapses do happen, a poorly child or adult needing some extra care and admitting can take half an hour easy. Would you prefer we left them to wait till we saw all the routine patients first?

However! I think 6 baby's for vaccs in 15 mins is ridiculous. We run vacc clinics with a GP to do the mum and baby check, the HV to weigh/chat to mum, write in red book, and a nurse to just jab! So on those grounds alone OP YANBU. But if this turns into another MN GP bashing thread I will be

I took DS for his last vacs recently and ended up being 15 mins late after being blocked it, the not finding a close parking space etc. The receptionist said "oh she probably won't see you now". Through clenched teeth I asked her to phone and check, and of course the nurse would. I accept I was late, but at that surgery, no matter who I am seeing, dr, nurse, midwife ets, I wait a MINIMUM of 15 mins after the alloted apt time, and have waited over an hour before. So if they had dared to tell me to come back another day I would have played merry hell.

I had the first GP apt of the day once. After 30 mins I asked the receptionist to check what was going on, only to be told he hadn't turned up yet. They called him and he was stuck in traffic [angey] In my job I would be lynched if I treated clients like that, and I'm a health profesional too!

not angey!

I used to get very frustrated about this. Then, one day I went to see the GP about what I thought was a minor illness. It turned out that it was not and the GP then spent about an hour on me (including having an ambulance come and collect me to take me directly to hospital). I am very grateful for her time and now I just take a good book with me when I go to the GP.

However, it does seem ridiculous in this case that they clearly booked far too many babies in. It is also pretty poor that you couldn't even sit down.

It's horrible enough going for jabs. It needs to be done as swiftly as possible.
yanbu

Well you know, macdoodle, maybe people feel the need to create gp-bashing threads out of the pure frustration and powerlessness that is so often their experience of visiting their gps, and worse, the lack of sympathy and inhumanity they face. I think people can understand that there are limited resources, but the staff in clinics (doctors, nurse and receptionists) need to have more compassion in general, and give some thought to better planning and communication.

YANBU this happens in my baby clinic as well.
DS2's 2nd set of vacs same sort of thing happened. Given an appointment time and on the day checked in a bit beofore watched them tick me off in the diary and I was 2nd appointment they took the 3 poeple after me on the list as they were there first.

Had it been a first come first served basis I would suck it up but we were given apojntment times that weren't even remotely stuck to. I had to be back to get DS1 from nursery and by the time I was seen I was only just on time to collect him and I had gone to surgery straight after dropping him off at 9.

They constantly run our baby.vacs clinic like this is our first baby they seem to forget that some people have older children to sort out too and don't have time to hang aout all day their waiting room.

Thank you Mothermountain, I somehow knew it would be the horrid horrid GP's fault. Read hercomesthesciences post again, very slowly, and take it in, there's a dear, and perhaps try and see it without your blinkered GP-bashing hat on

I'm not bashing the GPs at all.

I think my docs are fab and would have no hesitation in suggesting people register there.

I know there can be emergencies, and actually would be far happier waiting for the doc if I had an appt with them as i know some people need more time than others.

I guess I'm just mad at the system they use at our surgery for baby vacs because it wouldn't matter how hard the nurses tried they just wouldn't be able to keep to schedule.

I was once waiting at the GP for the last appointment of the day - and waiting and waiting...

different gp came out and asked receptionist how many more patients there were, but I didn't get included so went over to find out how much longer I was likely to wait having been there for half an hour already.

Turned out my GP had gone home - she was a locum, hadn't realised that the screen could display all but one of the afternoon appointments, nobody booked into the appointment before mine so she looked at her page, thought 'that's it for the day' and didn't scroll down to spot that there should have been another appointment waiting. I hadn't spotted her leaving the surgery as she was a locum that I didn't know.

The receptionist was very embarrassed and fitted me into the first appointment the next day (and thus shifted everybody else a bit later ) which was nice of her as I was in a job that made it difficult to escape for appointments.

And the doc was very very embarrassed the next day - so made sure I got a good consultation and for the first time spotted something that I had been asking about for about 7 years and had been told I was imagining/hypochondriac/wasting time etc. Turns out I wasn't and the other docs were the ones that had been fobbing me off, this doc couldn't believe they had ignored what I now now are textbook symptoms and that could have had treatment 7 years earlier if only they'd listened

It was only because the other doc came out to ask that I'd got the courage to go and ask about how my doc was doing; I was being nice and polite and british and just waiting beforehand whilst just wondering how much longer I was going to wait - wonder how much longer I would have had to wait if I hadn't asked

When I had depression I was in with my gp for a good half hour. He was fantastic. I don't mind a late appointment because I know the drs and nurses work very hard.

Maybe it would help keep appointment times with drs down if people didn't go along for every single sniffle? Or possibly they could make an appointment with a nurse practioner - they are very good and can issue prescriptions for most minor ailments.

One of my pet hates with visiting our surgery though is that you pretty much expect to be waiting for ages after your apt time and not just for medical emergencies (see my post above....), but that if the patient turns up even a fraction late the receptionist bark at you don't you realise you're late, prob won't see you blah blah blah. They need to realise that life gets in our way too sometimes.

BigHairyGruffalo - I ad a similar experience. Went as not feeling great but assuming nasty bug? Was onueminia and had it pretty bad? Ended up with gp for a long time doing tests, being referred for immediate hospital admission. Hence no longer stressing over it.