To turn up late for gp appointment.

[Needstotidyup]

I always arrive 5 mins late for gp appt as I know they are never on time. I am currently still waiting for my 1150 appointment (now 12:17). Should I turn up on time regardless?

i always arrive slightly early. I end up waiting most times. I suspect if you turn up a bit late you miss your slot and end up waiting even longer so whatever you do involves waiting.

it's just the way it is. I like my doctor and surgery. I can usually get an appointment quickly.

If you turn up late at my GP surgery, even by a few minutes, the receptionist phones down to the doctor to see if they will take you. I turned up slightly under 5 minutes late once and the doctor refused to see me. Had to rebook and go again another day.

Yet I've been waiting there well over an hour most times I've had appointments. A couple of times an hour and a half. I don't go that often, honestly!

I have no problem with being seen late as recently my appts have sometimes taken up more than their fair share of time I just feel grateful that my doctor cares enough to try and get people sorted.

Oh that's not helpful mirry; often I think the GPs forget to let the receptionists know what they're up to. Especially if there's an emergency, they're not ED medics and IME often flap a bit!

Our receptionists are so lovely they give you an appt time - say 10am. Then they say ring 10 mins before your time and we'll let you know how late he's running. You can then go half an hour later and you're not late. Our GP ALWAYS runs late and they know this.

OP, yes it's frustrating but I think you should still be on time - sorry

Robotover68 you must live very close to your GP surgery if you can get their in 10 minutes

I imagine you have a very small, quiet surgery robot! We have nearly 10,000 patients and the phones are constantly ringing. You'd never get through ten minutes before your appointment time!

Yes it's just one GP - so I guess we don't have as many patients - I am very lucky

The last time I took DS to the fracture clinic at the hospital they were running nearly two hours late....it wasn't a problem because the staff were being upfront about it as you signed in and monitoring the waiting area to make sure seats were going to those who really needed them. (And DS was happy to miss even more school!)

What was interesting was another member of hospital staff from a completely different department was ALSO a patient at this clinic...she was in her uniform and signed in at the desk like everybody else.

When it was explained to her about the delay she expressed concern about her own patients upstairs being delayed.

The receptionist staff told her to go away and they would beep her when the fracture clinic staff were ready for her!!

It wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest if they had bumped her to the front of the queue...but it didn't seem to even be an option.

Are you sure you have a specific appointment time and it's not just a block booking and it's first come first served??

I found this out to my cost when I turned up for my 10.30 antenatal appointment (having gone into labour whilst driving there). Told the recetionist my situation but it was over an hour (11.30) by the time I got 'my' appointment. It was explained then that they made a block appointment and then all the 10.30 people were seen in the order they arrived!!!

Still thought they could have bumped me up the pecking order as DS was born at midday!!!

YABU - The reason you may not get seen on time could be due to the discovery of a serious medical condition which required a lot of your GPs time - That was the only time my appointment has ever been more than a few minutes late.

I'd never bitch about it especially if have no idea why the GP surgery is running late

Have not so fond memories of waiting perched on narrow ledge-like seats for an hour, having driven 35 miles like a bat out of hell so as not to be late.....for a 5pm appt to have the gp breeze in at around 5.30pm

Now, our gp has a surgery 2 mornings a week, where you just turn up and wait. Can be 2 mins, can be an hour and a half. Have seen people open the waiting room door, look around and disappear. However, busy it is, however many people are in with him for over 20 mins, he always finishes on the dot of 12, so that he can go to the village bakery for his apérotif before lunch.

DH is a GP and is usually running late simply because he won't kick a patient out on the dot of 10 minutes. If someone came in with an earache, spoke about that for 9 mins then as they were getting ready to stand up said "Oh by the way, I'm feeling rather depressed/ have these chest pains/ am having sexual problems" he will carry on speaking to that patient for as long as it takes.

And as for "breezing in" - very often his afternoon surgery, which is meant to start at 3pm, is running late straight away because he's spent his lunch "break" speaking to consultants, signing repeat prescriptions, phoning patients who are ill but don't need a visit, and doing home visits to people who really need to see him in person (bed-ridden, palliative care, very elderly). Would you rather he stopped doing those things so that his afternoon appointments began exactly on time so the people who are able to get into the surgery aren't inconvenienced?

And yes, you can always ask the receptionist approximately how long the wait might be, or how many people there are in the queue in front of you, but it would be appallingly unprofessional for them to say "Oh you'll be waiting a while, Mr X has just keeled over" or "Mrs Y is in again and she always needs a double appointment".

The thing is, I understand why a GP might be running late, but at our surgery they are ALWAYS late, even if you are one of the first few appointments of the day. The receptionists also refuse to tell you how late they are running and are rude, the only consistently rude people I encounter generally. So I am not as understanding as I used to be!

I don't mind if the GP runs late - I understand appointments can run over etc. But and its a big but it pisses me off when they don't apologise for keeping me waiting - that's just general courtesy surely?

I remember calling our new practise for the first time 10 years ago at 6pm as we had just went to give dd a bath and noticed a suspicious looking rash.

The receptionist passed the phone to the gp who told us to come right down.

When we arrived he was waiting at the door for us in his tuning gear and seen us in his own time. The lights in the surgery were even turned off.

Have loved him since then

YABU - lets hope you're never the patient that is so ill and takes up so much of your GP's time that makes his/her clinic run late.

I think there are ways and ways to manage this though. IME if you explain to people what is going on, they are generally more than reasonable.

At my GP's - which I really like - they have a touchscreen 'arrive me' system so you check yourself in. It tells you when you sign in approximately how late your own GP is running - 'You are here to see Dr X; he is running 6 minutes late'.

There is a then an electronic ticker tape thing in the waiting room which calls you one by one. If they call you and you don't come they can buzz the next person in early (they can see if the next person has arrived due to the touchscreen system).

I guess this technology must've cost the surgery something but it makes things run really smoothly and you know you can't be forgotten by the receptionist. This also frees up the receptionists to talk to people on the phone, handle prescriptions and giving out sick notes etc.

The surgery is generally run really efficiently and you feel like you have time to talk to the GPs, as they tend not to be mega-stressed. I know the NHS is over-stressed, but sometimes, a bit of common sense can manage the bottlenecks so they're not too bad........

Our surgery has that electronic check in too. Trouble is, half the time, it's off. A quarter of the time it will check you in, but the screen will show the wrong name so you have to check with the receptionist anyway, and the rest of the time it says it's checked you in and it hasn't.

I'm not impressed with the way my surgery is run, can you tell!