AIBU to think ten days is too long to wait for a doctor's appointment?

[cinnamontoast]

I don't remember ever having to wait more than 2 or 3 days in the past but I've just been quoted 10 days for an appointment for me, and it was the same for my DD a few weeks ago. There is a walk-in clinic from 8-10.30 but the waiting time is horrendous. Plus I want to discuss a fairly complex problem and don't think it's reasonable to do this during an emergency clinic. What experience do other MNers have. Am I entitled to complain, and if so, how?

At my doctors, it's usually 4 to 5 weeks - I'd be thrilled to get an appointment in 10 days! Seriously though, I do think the waiting times are ridiculous.

Really train? :(

I like my GP a lot - she's a mature lady with a lot of common sense and compassion but doesn't take whining.

However... my experience of the NHS in general makes me determined to be as healthy as possible to avoid having to go near it. It genuinely makes me sad - I grew up abroad and always thought the NHS was one of the most amazing things about Britain, but seeing how close friends and family have been left in pain and with things untreated is just making me increasingly cynical.

I really wish there was something ordinary people could do to change this, but I don't think there is.

I've adopted WorrySighs concept!

Only go if something is falling off!

It took me 4 months to get a routine appointment for my medical review last autumn. In the end I had to threaten them with a formal complaint as my repeat prescriptions had run out.

Yes, 10 days is too long. But I think it's probably pretty good compared to the norm for nowadays.

My Surgery you are lucky if you can book a routine appointment with 4 weeks notice .
I have been trying to get an appointment with my Doctor for 5 weeks now as he is always on holiday

Mine has a phone at 8 and be seen that morning. All morning appointments are like that.

All afternoon appointments are pre booked for things like vaccinations, test results etc.

If you are desperate to see a Dr the same day but all appointments have been booked you go at 6.30 pm and wait. The Dr will stay until everyone has been seen.

Priority for afternoon appointments is given to working people. The surgery is on the edge of a large council estate, so lots of disabled/long term ill/single parents who may or may not be working.

So if you try to book 5.30 or 6pm you will be asked if you are working, if you are not then you will be asked why it has to be that time. They won't turn you away but they will ask you to go at 3pm instead.

It seems to work. I have always seen a Dr the same day.

It's the same for us. It takes up to 2 weeks or more for an appointment, if you need bloods taken then you need to make an appointment after you see the Dr for that which can take another 2 weeks and then you need to wait up to a week for the results.

The only on the day appointments are for emergencies only, you have to tell the receptionist what is wrong with you then wait for a GP to phone back. I phoned the other day in a state needing an appointment and was feeling very low, to the point I was thinking of hurting myself, got told to wait on GP phoning back and they ended up calling me back past 5pm, obviously with no appointments available. :(

We don't have a walk in clinic anymore.

For most of the 24 years I've been with current practice the typical waiting time to see any GP (not fussy) at my 6-GP practice was two weeks. The receptionist did not ask what was wrong with me and did not hint that there was any other kind of appointment that would enable me to see a doctor any sooner.

Things improved after the appointment-within-24-hours rule came in under the last government

In a market-oriented system, continual improvement/excellence is the norm/goal, and failure automatically punished. In the kind of system we have, the opposite is true: systemic forces act in the direction of failure, with occasional outburst of bureaucratic energy/competence temporarily reversing the slide.

It's so difficult isn't it? DH is a GP, loves his job but it's hard hard work. He goes in at 8 and comes home at 7.30 hanging! (esp on an on call day). I'm not sure what the wait for a routine appointment is at his surgery but I just see it from the other side IYSWIM. There needs to be a system in place to make the whole system more efficient for everyone but I can't work it out.

Our surgery keeps back several appointments that are only allocated on the day; before 8.30am. So you only have to potentially wait a day, assuming you can get through before 8.30.

Does your surgery offer anything similar?

Up to 4 weeks at my surgery. This is a small midlands market town.

Yanbu

I like my gps system. You can ring at 8 o'clock and get a same day appointment (or an appointment for the next couple of days if it is urgent but not that urgent iyswim).

Or you can book a routine appointment approx 10-30 days (I can't remember exactly but about that) in advance. But you can't get an appointment 3 to 10 days in advance. I found it great to arrange antenatal appointments a month in advance.

Also does evening appointments and also phone appointments too.

I went to my Docs the other day - have had an infection on the back of my neck for about a month which is very red, sore and itchy. Moisturiser didn't work, went to the pharmacist and was given hydrocortisone cream for a week, didn't work either. I had to wait 8 days to see a GP which was the best they could offer.

My surgery has about 10 doctors and unless it's an emergency (in which case they can usually squeeze you in with the locum the same day), a week or more for an app is standard. It's frustrating. YANBU OP.

So what's the answer? There's not enough GPs to go round and the population is increasing and living longer. The system is at breaking point

So I hope that everyone on this thread has written to their MP asking why exactly primary care funding is being cut with minimal negotiation. Please do.

XBenedict - a few things spring to mind:

• teaching people about the safe use of over the counter remedies for many complaints eg thrush, some forms of cystitis (my DD swears by bicarb but took ages to find out about it), over the counter pain relief.

• do you always need to 'see' a doctor? We lived abroad for a while an there you could drop in a urine sample at the practice if a UTI was suspected. This would be tested and a prescription issued if necessary. All without actually seeing the doctor.

• again abroad, our doctor's receptionist was also a nurse. Symptoms would be discussed with her first then she would decide whether an appointment with the doctor was necessary.

• better communication with patients. More information to patients about what to expect. This can be simple information such as what day to phone for test results. It could be more complex such as writing down a treatment plan.

• making efficiencies where possible - we have an excellent blood test system where all blood samples are taken at a single clinic. It is run incredibly efficiently, in and out in a few minutes with almost no waiting around time.

• better record keeping by doctors (and better record keeping systems for doctors) and also ensuring that doctors actually read the records.

XBenedict - great name btw - just to add to Worry's list -

My local PCT has this bizarre-o referral centre thing where you get sent if you are referred. So, instead of a GP referring you to a consultant, you get referred to this centre which is a private practice where you see.... another GP. Who REALLY gets to decide if you are worthy of referral.

The best joke? One of the GPs who runs it is a GP at our practice. So apparently his magical diagnostic powers don't work at his usual practice but they do work when he's at this referral centre!

This is blatantly inefficient and creates more fees work for GPs and makes it harder for patients to see specialists.

Or, in DH's case, his GP refused to refer him for his persistent prostatitis or to even physically examine him for several years, constantly saying 'Oh try this and see if it goes away' or 'Leave it and see if it calms down'.

Cue a bazillion unnecessary visits by DH to the GP every time his chronic condition flared up. Taking appointments which others could have used, wasting everyone's time.

Or, my last GP's practice used to make automatic appointments for women to get smears and if you cancelled yours, they just signed you up again in another 6 weeks or whatever. I didn't feel comfy with the dr there and wanted to make other arrangements for smears, but they wouldn't take me off the list - so I had countless appointments made which I then had to cancel. Every sodding two months. For years.

I could go on, but IME many NHS services are hopelessly inefficient and this must cause a lot of the strain.

Totally agree about the ineffiencies - DM reports one person calling her from the surgery to come in straight away (that morning) for urine test then the post brings a letter from the same surgery saying could she come in the next week or so for a urine test. I am guessing that the person who wrote the letter and who made the phone call sat in thee same office as each other and were working from the same records.

Yep all very significant points and I could add a couple myself and although most are fairly small added together and multiplied by your practice population each one becomes significant. I don't think it's one sided though and there must be things us as patients can do?

Worry - could that have been someone trying to fill an available appointment? I'm a practice nurse and for example if anyone cancels an imms appointment or I have a gap in my clinic I will call patients that are due to see if they can come earlier in an attempt to be more efficient and reduce the backlog.

Benedict yes there are, but frankly the NHS is so un-set-up (??? best word?) to deal with patients taking the initiative that it's hard.

Troo story: last time I had a scan the consultant said, we'll do the scan and then you can come to talk about the results.

Got an appointment letter for the results chat - no scan set up. Rang his secretary and pointed this out.

She was absolutely adamant that Mr X had not told her about any scan. Why the appointment, then? She didn't know. Would she check with him? She didn't have time.

So I turned up to a precious, rare-as-rocking-horse-shit clinic appointment which you normally have to wait 8-12 weeks for. Consultant clearly baffled as to why I was there, but booked me in for the scan at least.

The thing is there, NHS staff so often don't listen. They are lovely and really wonderfully clinically competent, but they have The System and you can't go outside or use common sense half the time it seems.

I dont think so XBenedict, because of her various conditions I think that there was relevance in the time delay. If she had gone in that day she would have had to go in again days later anyway and she had already had a sample analysed a couple of days before!

at this rate DM is going to forget how to use a loo and will start to see weeing in pots as the norm

I do think that communicating with patients more would help. Testing plans and treatment plans would let people know where they are in the process. It is the assumption that we all know absolutely nothing which is so annoying. Tell us what is going on, for goodness sake if the doctor wont tell us then we will just go home and google it anyway!