To think they should of stopped giving appointments?

[confusedlittleone]

Had an emergency GP appointment for my son today- the triage nurse rang us at 10:20 and asked us to bring him in for 11. When we got there I asked how late the gp was running to be prepared (they often run 20ish mins late) to be told that they were running 2 HOURS late.. aibu to think they shouldn't be make appointments for times they clearly can't keep?

Meh, who knows what happened in those 40 minutes, maybe they had an emergency like a patient having an asthma attack or something, or maybe the GP simply decided to have a two hour coffee break.

Yes and no.

If they were running that late due to an emergency, YABU, sometimes it happens.

If they were running late because they had deliberately overbooked every appointment then YANBU. I have heard of surgerys double booking every appointment to account for no shows meaning if everyone shows up (as they should!) they can get very behind. Not every appointment takes 10 minutes, some take 2, some take 20, the GP never knows what's coming in.

Was your son treated ok and sorted when he was seen? That's the main thing ! At least he was seen..for free. Stop moaning.

If they hadn’t given you an appointment you’d be on here moaning that you couldn’t get an appointment!

It’s not ideal no, but that’s what they get for trying to see everyone who needs seeing without having enough staff because GPS are hugely in short supply

Op yanbu, even if they had to book the 11am slot on the system, they could have told you not to bother coming til at least an hour later.

Should have.

Without more information there's no way of knowing if they'd overbooked the appointments.

@Thequeenisdeadboys actually we got to pay for this privilege

And yes ours books 2 people for every time to cover in case of no shows as well

Things happen, I was at my GPs recently and everything was running to time when a patient in the waiting room had a really violent seizure and didn’t come round for ages. Two GPs were helping and an ambulance was eventually called (the patient’s mum kept saying he had a condition).

Of course this meant the two GPs’ patients got delayed as they’d been helping.

Patients arriving were getting annoyed about the long wait, unaware of what caused the delay.

This is quite an extreme example I know but my point is anything can happen at the surgery and the delicate balance of back to back appointments can easily be shifted by all sorts of things.

Why are you paying to see the GP???

It will be emergency for sure, and probably more than one.
A few months ago I was one of those emergencies, so just be pleased it wasn't you getting the bad news and needing admissions into hospital urgently and needing care whilst waiting.

You would wait much longer in a&e

One time I went in with ds. He was 20 months old and had had a grommets' op a couple of days before and his temperature had come up while at the hospital. They gave me antibiotics because of that.
That morning he took the antibiotics and threw up twice. I phoned and asked the doctor whether I should give him another dose and he said he wanted to see him.
So I went down and he saw him immediately but by then he was being sick around every 5 minutes and then fell deeply asleep on the doctor's floor and couldn't be roused.
Obviously we were swiftly off to A&E, but I know the next patients didn't get in for nearly an hour late as the floor was kind of swimming in sick.

I've also been on the other end, where the doctor we were actually seeing at the time was called to an emergency where a baby had taken an immediate and life threatening reaction to a vaccine (I believe it turned out to be anaphylactic to eggs-I think whooping cough was grown on eggs or something). We were waiting over half an hour while they stabilised the baby. I would not have expected it to be any other way. I could wait. the baby couldn't.

I would be pissed off at a two hour wait as well - I'd prefer to be told to come in two hours later and be seen fairly promptly than sit around in a room full of sick people with a poorly child over the lunch period too

But as pp say, they don't do this just to piss people off, almost certainly something happened which pushed everything back a significant chunk of time

Who’d you have preferred a phone call saying your appointment was in 6 hours or tomorrow?

Do you know what happened between the phone all and you arriving for the appointment?

Worry about the important things.

If I get an emergency appointment I accept I may be waiting a long time. Others may also need an emergency appointment, people might need time to be examined and speak to the Dr beyond the 10 minutes appointment time, the Dr might need to take a break so they are able to function and not miss anything.
Would you prefer they say they can't see you at all? I assume your other choices would be walk in of a&e which would be much longer waits

It's not just full-on emergencies. It's also people being told bad news. I don't think any of us in that situation would like the GP clock-watching. However, given the fact most surgeries have the facility of automatically texting you to remind you of a next day appointment, I would have thought the next development could be texting patients if GPs are running very late.

But how do you get 2 hours behind in 40mins? Surely they would of already of been over an hour behind when OP made the appointment?

It annoys me when I book an appointment in 2 weeks time for blood tests results that only take a week because the GP refuses to discuss them over the phone and that's the first appointment I can get. Bugs me even more when I wait another week to get an 8 am (time they open) slot so I can get to work and the GP strolls in at 8.45 and stops for a chat to the receptionist (in full view and hearing of the waiting room full of people) about his or her weekend, night before, future plans that have no relevance (as far as I can tell, having a brilliant BBQ or having a shit oven pizza) to their work.
So I fully expect my GP to always be at least 40mins behind and so far they haven't failed me. But if a patient is more than 3 mins late (literally, 3 min cut off) they are told they are too late, not fair on other patients that will be late afterwards and have to make another appointment. Regardless that the room is full of patients who's appointment time was an hour earlier.

Sorry rant over.
IMO No OP YOU ANBU, bloody doctors surgeries are!

It seems to be a different appointments system but I work in a surgery and sometimes they do have emergency such as people come in with chest pain and the doctor suspects a heart attack obviously this takes a lot longer than 10 mins to deal with. Also sometimes people have problems which take a lot longer than the time given if they are having mental health issues/ a breakdown/ have dementia / addiction issues ECT sometimes things just take longer and sometimes people are in and out in 2 mins as they just needed something really quick. So I do understand why you would be frustrated as you had a appointment time unlike when you go to walk in and expect to wait.

@TheJoyOfSox considering I didn't ask for the appointment and the gp agreed that nothing more could be done until his next appointment yea that probably would of best- we only got given the appointment because of an overly cautious nurse (I rang in to give them a result like that ask didn't ring for an appointment)

We pay for his appointments as we're still waiting on the proof he's entitled to nhs care to come through (it's complicated he wasn't born in the U.K. or EU like my other son and I'm not with his dad)

Yanbu! I had a midwife appointment at my GP today and was recommended to stay at open surgery to get my whooping cough injection. This surgery runs from 9-10.30 and I was still sitting at 11 o clock waiting to be seen with at least 15 people in front of me. I had to leave to get back to work so now I'll have to go again in a few weeks because I don't want to take time off work and there were no available appointments until June which was far too late!

YABVVVU. I'm a GP.

Yesterday I was running 1.5 hours behind because a patient came in with chest pains and the ECG showed she was having a heart attack.

So I had to keep her and her husband calm, call an ambulance, call the hospital I was sending her to, and wait with her until the ambulance arrived.

Perhaps you'd like patients who are being told they have a terminal illness or present as immediately at risk of suicide to be bundled out quickly because they're causing a queue to build up?

Also - GPs don't want to be running late either. We don't get paid overtime or anything if our scheduled appointments overrun.

Plus, we certainly DO NOT double book appointments. I don't know a single GP practice that does.

What I find annoying about my GP is the fact you can't book a future appointment, you are told you need to ring at 8am in the morning, to get appointment for that day. If you can't get appt, you have to do the same thing the next morning???

I used to like it when you just turned up & were called in turn.

I always remember there are some really poorly patients who need the GP's time more than I do.