To be frustrated at having to redial the GP 63 times before getting through?

[weathered]

My GP surgery releases all of its appointments for the day at 8.30am. At the same time it releases a certain number of appointments that can be booked in advance for the following week. This means that the phoneline is completely jammed from 8.30 - 9.00 every day. You have to start phoning at 8.30, and continuously redial until you get through, after which there is a queue of around 5 - 10 minutes.

This morning was typical - I redialled 63 times between 8.30 and 8.45, when I eventually got into the queue. Presumably everybody else was doing the same and feeling as frustrated as me. It's incredibly stressful (and especially if you're meant to be doing something else at that time of the morning, like taking your children to school).

Often by the time I get through all the appointments are gone, including the advance appointments, and the out-of-hours appointments they can book at a local hub GP service. They then say you have to try again the next day, which is soul destroying. If you are able to insist that it is an emergency for a child under 12 they do sometimes manage to fit you in (but mine are older now).

They have recently introduced an online booking service, but it is only for adults who have set up an account - I can't use it to book appointments for the kids.

Some people bypass the phonelines altogether and queue up at the door for 8.30 - I've noticed it's often elderly people who have probably found it even more difficult and frustrating to get through if they don't have a modern mobile phone.

Of course none of this will be visible in the GP's reporting targets - they presumably just have to show that they have appointments that can (in theory) be booked on the day.

I know a single GP surgery can't compensate for all the problems in the NHS, but would it be reasonable to suggest to them that they make their phone queue longer? It would be a lot less stressful (and fairer) if I could just get through on the phone first time and stay on hold (while doing something else), ideally with a countdown of my position in the queue.

Failing that, can anyone recommend a rapid-auto-redial app for Android? They all seem to get poor reviews on the Play Store.

Agree. I got up to 104 redials once. The real solution is better access to GPS though (ie more of them).

It is frustrating. I'm a GP and we changed our system to take calls from 8-10 to stop this problem. The issue is that phone systems which will hold a long queue are often vastly more expensive and that comes out of the same pot of money that pays for GPs, so you could end up with less appts available in order to pay for the phone system!

General practice has had year on year real terms funding cuts since 2004. No-one can recruit - since Jeremy Hunt said he would find 5000 new GPs a year or so ago (ha!) we are down by about 1000.

Our previous practice moved to this except it was even worse in that you couldnt book any appointments at all in advance. It was complete madness as if you needed a routine appointment, you still had to call on the day (and you couldnt even book a coil fit ahead!). They moved over to a mix of advance and on the day bookings, but made the advance appointments available online. That did take some pressure off the phones. It would seem to make sense to utilise online booking, and to move the time you can book advance appointments to later in the day maybe?

We had this once and it was a nightmare. Moved to a fabulous new practice where there are appointments easily available. They have long serving GPs and a high level of support staff who pick up everything possible to free up the GP for face to face patient work.