To write to my GP?

[cfmagnet]

It's extremely difficult to get an appointment with any of the GPs at my local surgery. I am suffering with anxiety and depression, I think, brought on by high weight gain. As a consequence, I find it difficult to leave the house. I work from home thankfully so still able to financially support my family but this is affecting every other aspect of my life. It's gotten so bad that I can't even take my children to school.
Would it be unreasonable for me to write to one of the GP's at the surgery rather than make an appointment which I would cancel a week before in a fit of overwhelming anxiety. Really don't know what else to do, I can't go on like this.

*huge, not high

It would be fine, but when you say difficult to get an appointment what do you mean? You have to wait ages to get one, or don't they do advance ones?

Can you request a home visit?

Does your surgery offer telephone consultations? Mine does which can be perfect for generalised advice or initial contact.

You can write to them, but they'll need to speak to you or see you after that.

Have you asked for a callback?

Check if they do a self-referral scheme in your area. We have one (which surprised the hell out of me as rural sticksville) and they do an initial assessment over the phone.

You poor thing.

Have you not got any direct-access MH services in your area? They're supposed to be rolling (rolled?) out nationally.

Try googling "NHS Mental health [your area] self refer".

I work in a surgery to be honest of the doctors receive letters they read them then usually ask us to contact and book an appointment How do you feel about a telephone appointment ?

What do you want to happen as a result of the letter?

Request easier ways to get an apt? It needs to be raised with the practice Manager, not a named GP.

Letter consultation? They won't be able to support this, they'll likely ring you or write back outlining your appointment access options.

Something else?

You could definitely write to them. Do they not do emergency appointments so then you are not building up to it for weeks? Although, at my surgery, even emergency appointments are hard to get!

Also have you looked at what the surgery offers, they may already have an open support group offering for mental health well-being and/or weight loss sessions.

Or drop in clinics at times with specialists within the practice.

Have a look here OP;

beta.nhs.uk/find-a-psychological-therapies-service/

Just echoing others, ask for a telephone appointment.

A doctor can't assess you via letter, correspondence would take far too long to have any proper outcome. Imagine a conversation with a GP, then put that into letter form. It would be difficult and GPs really don't have enough time in their day to do that.

Other than that, self referral?

Op in the kindest way, please consider other options first than asking for a home visit, taking an emergency apt slot, or other stuff posters have suggested. I'm not saying it doesn't sound important but please look at other suggestions first!

Most surgeries do telephone appointments now

I'd email pretty much exactly what you have written here and send it the GP and ask them to advise. As others have also said there will be NHS services local to you that can also help. Drop them the same email and someone will come back and know how best to help.

It sounds like you could use a referral to the mental health team / practice nurse and dietician etc. I am pretty sure if you just point out your difficulties as you have done here, they will be best placed to advise and either refer you directly or give you the contacts / have someone get back in touch with you.

I sympathise entirely and understand the worst most difficult thing is the first thing but once you're over that - the rest does't feel as much of a big cloud hanging over your head. Just getting your thoughts collected enough to think about moving forward is almost impossible when the burden is on you to start the ball rolling.

Start with an email / call and explain what's going on. So hard when something starts to take hold and the anxiety literally puts your life on hold but once you get over that first bit - you're rolling

Let us know how you get on x