To turn up 30 mins late for a GP appointment

[Kasterborous]

I had a GP appointment today and turned up five mins before my appointment time, booked in it said only one person before me. So why did I have to wait 50mins with a bored 14 month old!! It pees me off every time I go its the same, so why can't I turn up 30 mins after my scheduled appointment time!?

disclaimer I know I am being a bit unreasonable but i didn't sleep well last night because this sodding eczema is itching like nobody's business

Didn't they have toys germ dispensers there?

If the GP you saw normally keeps to time, then it's one of those things. If they are routinely late with no apology then there is something very wrong with the practice management or operation.

(My dentist routinely runs 40 minutes late - you can set your watch by her. I was very tempted to turn up 40 minutes for my appointment last last week, but decided that sod's law would kick in and she would be on time. She wasn't btw )

They did have toys but she was bored after 10mins I even took her favourite books from home but she wasn't interested and a packet of mini cheddars only lasts so long.

I hope you set up a repeat prescription for it? In my GP practice you can order repeats online and pick them up 7am to 7pm . And they mostly run on time. I'd rather they ran late and gave everyone the time they needed though
So,
YABU

Went to a see a private doctor last week, £150 for the consultation and he was also half-an-hour late.

I think YABVU.

Yes everything is on repeat now apart from the steroid creams but made sure I got plenty today

packets of rasins are great for keeping them quiet as they take them longer to eat!

Glad you got sorted in the end.

To those complaining about GP's turning up late...

Now I am sure there are the odd occasions when that happens due to personal circumstances,but also bear in mind they may have dropped by somebody's house to see them or they may have been doing a stint in a hospital clinic (Clinical Assistant/GP Specialist to a consultant) and that may have been running late.
Sometimes GP's are late getting to hospital clinics because their own surgery ran late. They can't win.

I know its annoying if you don't know what is happening,but having a GP clinic isn't exactly an exact science. Too many random things that can happen in a day. And receptionists may not know any better than you do how long the delay will be.

(I'm an ex hospital out-patients receptionist, and my mother was a GP receptionist)

My dd was once that delay. She was 7 at the time and had what everyone thought was just a stomach bug until she went into a seizure that lasted more than two hours,. The seizure started at home and like an idiot I bundler here into the car and drove like a mad thing to out surgery. Doctors came out of the woodwork in an effort to stabilise her before the ambulance could take her to hospital. I am sure a good many folk in the waiting room were cursing the long wait that day. Turns out she had chicken pox and it had affected her brain, she had frequent high doses of steroids for asthma at that time hence the drama.

I am eternally grateful to everyone who treated her and sorry to those that we delayed.

DS has been the delay in a clinic before because the doctor was called from clinic to A and E to help save his life, the next day 3 doctors were called to the ward but I don't know if they were from a and e or clinic.

A few months later I was in a clinic with him when the receptionist came to apologise to everyone that the consult was running late as he had been called to an emergency in A and E. I was quite disgusted how many people still complained that there appointment was going to be late.

I should know better as once my GP arranged for me to go to be seen at the hospital from an appointment I didn't need an ambulance luckily but used the volunteer transport. So I do understand the genuine emergencys. I hope all those who posted on here are okay now and are better.

My GP surgery always seems to be running late, but each doctor makes sure you are seen properly and not rushed out the door. They've also phoned hospitals for me and spoken to consultants, waited for other gp's for second opinions, phoned me on my mobile to update me with test results etc which all take up far more time than the allocated 10 minutes. They also always try and fit in an unwell baby that day too, so I understand why they may be running late as I'm sure they go above and beyond for every patient too, not just me.

My uncle is a GP too, in 2 surgeries and he says they are both having difficulty with getting locum doctors so if one doctor is sick or on holiday the workload is distributed amongst the rest of the gp's so more work to do in the same amount of time.

It must be really frustrating waiting around with a bored toddler but I'm sure they're all doing their best with the short space of time they're given for each patient.

Change GP! I did and the new practice is almost always on time and apologises if not Once they were running early

What is annoying I guess, is that they call it "An appointment" which to me means I turn up 5 min early, wait my 5 min, then get seen.

If they called it an opportunity to see the doctor at some point after the allotted time, then maybe it wouldn't seem quite so bad...

Life gets in the way sometimes - the trouble is no one outside the surgery gives a damn why you are late out of the surgery- late for parking £60 please, late to pick kids up - meltdown in the playground... late to take elderly parent with dementia her lunch - you really don't want to know what was smeared up the walls.

The last instance was after I left the surgery after waiting for 2 hours with the "the doctor will see you soon" ringing in my ears... no he won't -just tell me he won't - so I can go get on with things and make a fresh appointment when I'm free for up to 3 hours....

I cried for the hour and a half it took me to clean the walls and the carpet - just for the wont of being told it was unlikely I'd be seen in the next 20 mins....

My GP is always late, I quite like it like that as when I am in there, I don't feel rushed and she listens.

The thing that does annoy me is having to book appointments nearly a month in advance with no on the day appointments.

Our GP used to be shocking. An hour and a half wait was the minimum you could expect. But then he got a new receptionist and she seems to keep the place running pretty well. She's ok with your calling ten minutes before your appointment time to check how the schedule is (I only live five minutes away) so you can stay home longer and if they're having a bad day, she'll ring you and let you know, then ring you again when the person before you on the list goes in so you can go down. She's never once not squeezed DS in on the same day if needed, and if I've rung up and told her what I need, she'll usually get me in as well (to be fair, I don't think I've ever been in his office more than about three minutes as it's usually just some antibiotics needed).

The biggest problem is the patients that get in there and then have a list of ailments to go through, which take a lot more than ten minutes. If people were honest with the reception staff and said they may need a double appointment, then that would help with timing for appointments.

Our Practice has 4 GPs, two of whom are always late, one spectacularly so. If I get offered an appointment with her I politely decline and ask for someone else.

My complaint is that there is no alternative. I would gladly pay insurance or pay per consultation to be able to get an appointment at my convenience, for that appointment to happen on time and be for 10 minutes consultation not five and to be properly greeted and attended to by a receptionist with a decent manner.

Sadly where we live none of this is an option so we're stuck with an irritating and unsatisfactory service. BTW I'm gobsmacked at the practice nurse upthread who says, by way of explanation, that she has to interrupt the GP to get them to do a hospital admission for her patient. She doesn't seem to see that she is then enabling her patient to jump the queue for no good reason - a non urgent hospital admission should have to wait like the rest of us.

I am glad that we don't have to pay to see a GP because the eight prescriptions I need a month cost an arm and a leg. Thank goodness for the pre-pay certificates.

carabos so you think a patient with an infected foot and a necrotic toe needing hospital admission is non-urgent? Maybe I should have asked the patient (an 84 year old diabetic by the way) to come back in 2 weeks for a routine appointment?

Riiiiggghhhht....

Carabos - I think someone needing hospital ADMISSION deserves to be "jump the queue"

what do you want them to do tell the patient to just sit and wait and try not to get any worse until the end of practise?

I don't think anyone would mind having to wait longer if there was an emergency.

It's just that in my GP surgery (and others, it seems), it seems to be the norm to wait at least 30 minutes for a booked appointment. I find it hard to believe that every time i go to the GP, there is a medical emergency in front of me. And, as others upthread have said, if the patient is late, regardless of the reason, they may not even be seen.

And, sorry if I'm being thick here, but if most appointments take more than 10 minutes, why don't they have longer appointment times?

It doesn't need a medical emergency for something to take longer than the 10 minutes.

And they have 10 minutes slot for a simple reason too many patients and not enough GPs!

You get a 4 minute appointment here. Which is probably why it runs over so much.