Annoyed by Doctors Surgery

[CheshireGirl38]

Tried to book the teenager a (non-urgent) appointment at the doctors surgery for tomorrow, but told 'you have to book on the day of the appointment'. This is a complete pain as tomorrow morning I'm on the motorway and she's at school, and all our mornings are a mad rush anyway! By the time I'm able to do it, chances are there won't be any appointments or you we'll get the most inconvenient time available. AIBU or is the system weighted for people who have plenty of time in the morning (that excludes anyone with kids or a job)?

[sleepy16]

We don't have routine bookable appointments what so ever.
You have to phone on the day end of.

[HelenaDove]

Im willing to bet that part of the problem is employers. An ex boss of mine tried to prevent me from attending an appointment even though she had agreed to me that i could nip out to it beforehand. Couldnt book it for my day off because she would change my day off at less than 24 hours (sometimes 12 hours) notice.

Im willing to bet that employers like these are responsible for some of the non attendance.

[tinyterrors]

Our surgery do both book on the day which are gone within 20 minutes of the phone lines opening and also have some pre-bookable appointments. They also have phone appointments where the doctor will either prescribe without seeing you or give you an appointment for later that day, there are also late appointments until 8pm two nights a week for those who can't get time off work for even an urgent appointment.

The only problem is that the pre-bookable appointments tend to be booked up for four weeks in advance and are the late opening appointments which completely nullifys the entire point of having late opening times for those who need to see a doctor within a day or two but who can't get time off work.

In theory my surgery is great but the system needs tweaking to have more pre-bookable daytime appointments and keep some late opening appointments for book on the day for those who can't get time off work.

[Piscivorus]

Surely people could then cancel? In fact I'll go further and say that if there was a charge they would cancel. There will always be some missed appointments that are reasonable and unavoidable but the majority are just because it takes an effort to ring and cancel while there is no penalty

[Solina]

This is much better system than the one in my old gp practice. You had to go there at 8 am and sit and wait until your name was called rather than be given a time. Such a waste of time.

I have no issue with phoning in the morning for a urget appointment and yes I work. If its not urgent just book a time ahead just like everyone else does.

[harderandharder2breathe]

My GP surgery has bookable appointments 2 weeks in advance and on the day phone at 8am ones.

Just the way it is in most places I'm afraid. And of course it's not geared to people at work, because generally if you need a doctors appointment the same day you're quite unwell.

[SquidgyRedBall]

I changed my GP as my old one was impossible to get an appointment - even speaking to someone was near impossible. After sitting on hold for half hour and then being hung up on I had enough.

My new doctors is amazing, all the doctors and staff are lovely and they have open surgery every morning from 7:30, plus an evening surgery until 7:30 for workers which can be booked a week in advance. With the open surgery you have to wait your turn and it can be a pain if it's busy but I've never waited longer than an hour, which is actually quicker than my old doctors when you had a timed appointment!