To think a 6 week wait for a GP appointment is totally ridiculous

[fussychica]

Just tried to book an appointment at our local surgery to get something checked out. Not been for ages and I was expecting a 2 - 3 week wait but apparently there are no face to face appointments before the 4th Jan and they are not releasing any appointments beyond that date until the end of next week. There are also no 5 minute telephone consultations available until after 21 Dec. Apparently there is no doctor shortage at the surgery.
I am really shocked and not quite sure what to do apart from go private. It's not an emergency at the moment but at the same time I'm not happy to wait 6 weeks to sort it.
Have written to my MP advising him of the situation, for all the good it's likely to do.

So is this the norm now or are the people of this town alone in receiving such a sub standard service?

So gets this straight. If GPs wants to work part time they should pay extra tax and type 2 diabetes is all self inflicted?

DerelictWreck

I am hearing this more and more often. It is just so unbelievably bad now.

I do think that there's a good argument for the turn up and wait surgeries that we had when I was a child. No appointments, you literally just turned up and queued morning and afternoon.

It was annoying and time consuming but not as bad as waiting 6 weeks for an appointment or phoning constantly for days on end or losing lots of appointments to did not attends.

We are really lucky with our local surgery. I can nearly always get an appointment the same day if urgent or the next if not. Nurses do a lot of routine work like BP, injections, Blood tests etc. We also get referred to a couple of local private hospitals (Nuffield) for non-urgent tests if the local NHS hospital can't see patients straight away.

But we are in Greg Clark's constituency. Tory Cabinet Minister and Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

It's bloody scandalous that you have to wait so long OP. Take it to the local press and keep on at your MP.

God I thought mine was bad.

Made an appointment earlier this week and the nearest they could do was Dec 17th.

Just to say- most GPs have a mix of advance appointments and book on the day. You may not be able to book in advance for ages but if you can call at 8.30 (and I appreciate that a lot of people can't) you can often get a same day appointment. We have to have a mix of the two as so many people don't turn up when appointments are booked in advance.

Not all practices are the same- where I work every single person that calls on the day gets a call back from a doctor and either seen that day or booked into an appointment convenient for them.

And could I just point out that 'part time' GPs also get a part time salary? My 'part time' 3 day a week GP job is 36 hours at the surgery followed by about another 10 hours of CPD, practice work and paperwork in my spare time. 36 hours of intense non stop work in which any mistake could result in someone's death or the end of my career is quite enough. Or do you believe that women shouldn't allowed to work part time?

sorry- that was addressed to @badbadbunny

imiss

I was told very clearly by the diabetic nurse I was sent to that my type 2 was fully self inflicted and it was disgusting I let it happen to me when it's always self inflicted. When admitted to hospital I saw another nurse who told me that having reduced my levels by 10% in six weeks showed I was just being lazy and in that time if I tried I'd have been cured.

I've several disabilties including ones which make cooking impossible for me and one that along with my genes meant I would get diabetes yet I was told very clearly it was my fault.

I refuse to attend any diabetes clinics or see diabetes nurses now. I've had several letters about how I'll be personally responsibile for any effects from my diabetes as a result, but given how I was treated I cannot cope with being blamed for having it. I left both appointments devastated.

My diabetes is now in remission but still when ill it spikes. I'm still blamed for it. Even though illness including panic attacks effects blood sugar.

Since diagnosis without fail when saying I've diabetes I've been told "oh it's just type 2" and been dismissed.

I thought all CCG’s had mandated all GP surgeries to have extended hours services. Some of them are contracted out but offer evening and weekend appointments. Some areas are not well staffed. You should ask them about this

6 weeks is terrible. Complain to your local CCG

Can I just add that there simply are not enough GP’s to go around for the size of the practice lists nowadays and if your GP only works 2 days a week it’s unlikely they are just playing golf the other 3 days, most work elsewhere (perhaps in a specialism), are obligated to undertake managerial work/business/finance and a whole host of other things like working on new pathways with acute hospitals, attending safeguarding meetings, attending meetings for patients with complex needs or maybe they have their own children and can work part time like any other worker. GP’s are not living the life of Riley. All the new build houses are crippling the infrastructure in most suburban and city areas. It’s really sad

I hope you get an appt

Wow. We phone in and the doc or nurse phones back. If it warrants a visit, you get an app majority of the time the same day.

Here in jersey we pay too. People complain about the cost (my last appointment set me back £42 - just a basic appointment for what turned out to be a throat infection...) but you’re see same day. Maybe not with your preferred gp but with one in the practice.

Ours is a rural practice covering an area of around 40 square miles. And unfortunately that includes a local agricultural college. If you're a student, you can see someone same day. Everyone else has to wait around 3 to 4 weeks, longer for an appointment with a named GP.

I have to have a diabetic review every 6 months, and it took nearly 7 weeks of constant phoning to get an appointment. And they had the cheek to send me 2 reminders during that time, saying how important it was to go for them! I wanted to post them back saying I'M BLOODY TRYING!

Same at my surgery. 5 weeks wait the last time I rang. I didn’t bother making no the appointment but still need to go. It’s crap.

Just to say- most GPs have a mix of advance appointments and book on the day. You may not be able to book in advance for ages but if you can call at 8.30 (and I appreciate that a lot of people can't) you can often get a same day appointment

My surgery has same day appointments but only for emergencies and you habe to tell the receptionist what the problem is and she then decides if that warrants an emergency appointment.

That's terrible. You can get both emergency and routine appts on the day at my GPs surgery. If they can do it then all surgeries should e able to do it

Our GP surgery triages on the day. Works a treat. Can always get an appointment if I’m on the phone first at 8am/2pm. Although, we are lucky to have a walk in centre too. Usually wait 3 hours for walk-in.
I think triaging is smart. It stops people forgetting their appointments. And you get to see a doc ASAP.

I sympathise. I've tried to make an appointment before & been told outright that there were no non-emergency appointments available & that all I could do was call back the following week when the release the next batch! Since then, DH has been unwell & the only way to get seen has been to call up at 8am in the morning and ask for an emergency appointment. Then you can usually get seen that morning but is a pain in terms of notifying work & also feels morally wrong for routine or non-urgent things that aren't a genuine emergency. Last time I tried I could book a telephone consultation at about a week's notice, though the doc never actually called me & luckily problem got resolved elsewhere. This is in London btw. Shorter answer no UANBU!

Not everywhere, no. Same day or next day appointments here. Phoned up this morning and requested a telephone consultation, GP phoned back 10 mins later.

That's awful, just checked my app on my phone and I can get numerous appointments starting Monday morning!!

Agree that if we could book appointments with specialists this would free up a lot of GP time. It happens in other countries including countries with socialised healthcare and their systems do not collapse under the weight of patients going to see gynaecologists when silly them what they need is a fracture clinic. It's infantilising to suggest that people are incapable of doing this and need to be paternalisticly approved to be deemed worthy of consulting a medical specialist.

No good bitching about it, so many of the GPs i know have emigrated from this shit hole of country and were never replaced, women make up almost all of GPs in our local surgeries, they may have children and work part time, fair enough, be glad they are still here instead of moaning!

For decades we ve voted in governments that prioritize tax and spending cuts over services and we ve lapped it up.

Nursing shortages to hit 40k, total NHs staff shortages soon to be 100k

You voted for it, so get used to it.

At least you can get an appt. at mine they have this silly system that you phone, wait all day and someone will phone back to discuss with you what the problem is. If they phone back. Our local a&e is full all the time. Wonder why? You can not book an appt even if its two, three months away. Appts are for that day only and you have to have ths phone call before which if it comes can be as late at 4pm and youve phoned at 8.30am. If you miss the phone call (in the toilet) you cant get through again till 8.30am this next Morning. Our gp says they doing really well as theyve appointments free every day. Everyone i spoke to hates this system.

You can’t self refer as this is not how NHS tariffs work unfortunately. Also the specialist services need to gatekeep their own time for the exact same reasons as GP’s. Too little capacity too much demand

Stupid inefficient appointment systems have little to do with cuts and a lot to do with poor administrative practice though.

And we pump loads of money into the NHS - more than other Western nations with the same health demographic as us who deliver a much better service. There is only so much you can blame the Tories for and a group of people having a meeting and deciding to adopt an appointment system that is impractical and difficult to access because they don't prioritise patients isn't one of them.

We used to have to call at 8am which was a nightmare as you could never get through and also i was usually doing the school run at that time so couldn't call, they brought the MyGP app in a few months ago and it is brilliant, like I said, appointments as soon as Monday and you can just browse through the days to choose which doctor you want to see.

It works because you feel like you can leave something a day or so to see if it goes away/can be self treated safe in the knowledge that you can get an appointment if you need one, rather than panicking and booking an appointment for a weeks time just in case.

An elderly relative of mine struggled to get appointments over a period of two years. She was breathless and not sufficiently IT literate to use the online booking system. She would be no 40 in the telephone queue then be told they had no appointments. She saw a doctor a few times over that period. Turns out now she had a tumour in her lung growing in that time. I was told by a Macmillan nurse that her surgery had bought out other surgeries and just didn't have enough doctors for the patients. That's introducing market forces to the NHS.