GP practice "not offering appointments"

[Darkestseasonofall]

This is a new low. Just called to make an appointment to be told they aren't doing any for the foreseeable future.
If it's an emergency you can call on the day and try to get a telephone consultation, but that's it.
I can see a huge rise in people attending ED in appropriately or just becoming very ill with avoidable things.
This isn't NHS bashing, I'm a nurse, but I can't understand how primary care can just opt out of 90% of their contract.
AIBU to think this is just silly?

My surgery is similar. I needed a prescription review but wasn’t allowed to book a GP appointment (even over the phone) as it’s not urgent (despite the fact I’m very close to running out of my meds).
Instead all I was offered was a call from the pharmacist. Pharmacist calls but says can’t prescribe the medication, go back to see your Dr

But my surgery won’t let me see a GP
I hate to sound so rude/entitled but why am I not allowed to see (or speak over the phone with) a GP when my local area isn’t in tier 2 or 3. Also other workers still have to do their face to face jobs as usual?

@WillowSummerSloth

I'm a GP and I find it hard to believe this is happening. I'm also on tons of GP forums and it's not happening anywhere as far as I know. Most appointments are initially telephone triage and then patients that need to be seen can be booked a F2F review. We've been busier than ever, regularly working 12 hour days as have most of my GP friends and people on the GP groups. So it doesn't quite add up to me.... If they are genuinely not offering any routine appointments, then they would of course be in breach of contract and you should take it up with the local CCG. Is it that there were no prebookable appointments? So you have to call on the day? There's good reason behind this method currently. Is it that your individual GP is high risk/ isolating and thus not seeing F2F? In which case you should be directed to an alternative doctor. It just seems odd and not at all the experience of me and my colleagues.

Our surgery are always short staffed even pre-covid they were advertising for permenant GPs, theres only 1 permenant GP the rest are locums so that might be why ours is emergencies only as they literally cannot deal with anything else.

I've had good care from my GP throughout the pandemic. They offer telephone appointments then see you if needed. Both on the day and book in advance appointments. I also got my flu jab from my go last week. So it's really shocking to hear this is happening elsewhere.

What it their rational for it? I'd contact you ccg who commission them to ask what's going on.

My GP is directing patients to e-consult which is a complicated and clumsy system and you get a brief sentence in reply. If you phone to ask for a phone consultation, you will get one a day or two later.
If the GP decides you need a F2F appointment, the wait is around 4 weeks instead of a few days with no urgent appointments. They have one GP seeing patients for around one hour each morning and afternoon. If you wish to see a female GP, there are only appointments one day a week.
f you have an issue which might mean a referral under the two week wait, you will have waited four weeks to see the GP first!

@AnneLovesGilbert The blood test thing might be due to the company that supplies all the machines and materials to do the blood tests. If that is Roche, then they have had a major supply issue, so in some areas of the country they're having to cancel all GP work, as they only have enough stock to keep them going with urgent inpatient work.

My GP surgery has been doing this in March I thought it was the norm. They did make a house call for my DH for a serious problem but that's unusual.

@noseresearch try writing to the Practise manager - sometimes it's getting past a gate keeper and sometimes it's having a problem in written form but it might move things forward so you get the medication - but it's worked for some of my family when told similar.

I wonder in how many delayed cancer diagnoses this will result. Agree with pp, this is ridiculous.

Are you sure they've not just explained it clumsily?

Our practise does this as a matter of course. You ring in the morning (96 attempts to get through the other day). You give the details. The receptionist gives it to the most appropriate doctor. They ring you back and if they can deal with it over the phone they do, but if they can't they give you an appointment time to come in.

They are doing as few face-to-face appointments as they need too at the moment both because it's safer and because they get through far more patients with phone conversations.

Mine is no longer doing pre bookable appointments. It’s call on the day and they will ring you back - if you can get though, or fill in an online form and they will call at some point. Fun if you’re at work.

I have managed to get an asthma review booked - but it’s over the phone. Presume I’ll just need to breathe extra loudly.

Oh needs to see a gp about his blood pressure and cannot book an appointment.

I am a practice nurse and I have never been busier. In my practice we are all working very hard under difficult conditions and wearing PPE all day. We are seeing patients for every service except travel vaccinations and breathing tests. Smears, bloods, ECGs, immunisations, health reviews etc. My GP colleagues are also working extremely hard- telephone/ video triage then seeing face to face as needed. Everything is actually more efficient and our patients are generally happy with the service offered.

This is why people are getting fed up with the "protect the NHS mantra". A lot of the NHS still doesn't seem to be doing very much.

My surgery is a bit better than yours and is at least doing telephone appointments, baby vaccinations etc. although the telephone service has been really shoddy. The doctor calls on a terrible line, seems in a huge rush to get off the phone and has twice given my baby the wrong medication because they wouldn't look at a rash in person. You could do a better job with google. I did have a virtual 6 week check after giving birth which was also fairly pointless as they wouldn't check my stitches in person even though I wasn't sure they had healed correctly and a virtual 8 week check for my baby (where they just asked if he was ok and feeding enough).

I've never had a health visitor at all because they were redeployed to help with covid. I've no idea what they were doing because cases are very low in my area and always have been.

But I can get my eyes tested, go to the hygienist, get my hair cut etc.

Maybe this is too harsh but if you choose to work in healthcare but are unwilling to deal with someone who has a low probability of having an infectious disease even with precautions in place maybe you're in the wrong job.

@WillowSummerSloth

I think the point I'm trying to make is that the implication is that GPs are doing nothing could not be further from the truth. We are burning out at a ridiculous rate and working harder than ever especially in the last few months. I'm sorry the access is difficult but it's almost certainly due to being overwhelmed with demand rather than the opposite.

As far as I know you can get a telephone appointment on the day with my surgery, but you'll need a dispensation from the Pope for a face to face slot.

But with my mum's surgery she was told it was well over a week to wait to even speak to a doctor on the phone, I assume the practice nurse does a few calls too.

On the plus side, people are terrified of going to hospitals, so if you are already in the system and don't need the GP referral, you can get things done - my mum had an outpatient procedure done yesterday, within about two weeks of an optician's referral, it would normally have been months and months. But if you can't even get to speak to a GP, what do you do?

Even a pre bookable telephone slot would be better than nothing. And probably more time efficient for the gp as they wouldn’t be ringing people who were unable to take the call because they are at work.

My GP surgery has no permanent GPs, they only have locums. You can have a telephone appointment with a GP but if they deem you need a f2f appt this is with a nurse, they then feed back to the GP who decides what to do next. People are not getting the help they require. It was bad before the lockdown, now it's abysmal.

Doctors surgeries running as normal here in NI, and I think we have the highest rates of CV in the UK.

I would kick up a real fuss about this. Contact your MP, or whoever is in charge of service.

I can't get a smear test done.
They sent me a letter reminding me it was due, then when I called said they have no appointments. I've called three times now and they've pretty much said its not going to happen. Not sure what to do next, a backlog is just going to build surely?

Ours is using e-consult which I’ve found to be a lot better than the usual palaver of trying to book a normal appointment

I’ve used it twice, both times a GP phoned me back within an hour with everything sorted over the phone

I couldn't book an appointment online and phoned as I needed a repeat prescription for HRT. I usually get 6 months at a time after a review.

Because I can't see a GP for a review (they are only doing telephone appointments) they will only give me 1 month at a time so it's currently costing me £19 per month for the prescription instead £19 for 6 months. I'm about to be made redundant and that's a significant expense.

We absolutely do need better access but the way to solve that is to treat GPs and nursing staff better so they don't leave in droves. The GPs that are there will almost certainly be working way, way beyond paid hours. I put in around 4 hours a day I'm not paid for and log in at weekends from home to try to deal with blood results, letters and tasks. I have friends that are burnt out and on sick leave which is totally understandable but again, makes it even more stressful for the staff still in practice. It's a horrible situation for patients and staff alike but I would absolutely like to defend the practice staff who are almost certainly working above and beyond.

This is a very real issue for me at the moment. I had an accident during lockdown, and didn't get help as was shielding elderly mother and the minor injuries units were closed locally. The GP was only doing telephone appointments. I called him in July to report a problem with my neck and he just dismissed it over the phone. By September, I was in A&E with severe pain. I was diagnosed with jugular vein distention, and went onto see a specialist who found a fractured rib, thoracic outlet syndrome where my artery is being crushed by the bone injury. Loads of people fall through the net because of the way the pandemic is being managed at primary care level.

Well I just telephoned them back to clarify, and was told the same again. So I asked what alternative arrangements the health board have made to cover their contract (we're in Wales so no CCG) and was told that I'd misunderstood and of course they are offering routine appointments, and if I call on Monday I'll get one.
Makes me slightly furious that they are trying to fob people off though, my elderly Grandmother for example would have accepted it and sat in pain endlessly.

My surgery are doing telephone consultations, but are offering f2f appointments if absolutely nessecary.

I had a consultation OTP last week and they prescribed what I needed. The receptionist in advance told me they were extremely busy so I wouldn't get a call back until the following day - not a problem.

I then received a text from the surgery inviting me in to have my flu vaccine, so they are dealing with routine things too.

My GP is doing appointments. You call, someone calls you back for a phone appointment, and if it's a face to face issue you go in.

That’s what mine is doing and it’s fine for me as I have a job where I can take calls. But they don’t give you a time for the telephone appointment, and if you miss it that’s it. So, my mum who’s a teacher can’t get any appointments during term time unless she gets lucky and they call her during a break. This system doesn’t work well for anyone who has a job where they can’t answer the phone at a moment’s notice.

I do cringe when I read these issues. Luke the GP upthread I am really busy. Lucky noone off isolating just now but they have done triage from home.
We call patients then arrange to see them if they need to be seen. Takes a lot longer as we have to clean the room between each patient. Well wipe chair and surfaces and door handles.
We started smears a few weeks ago when the program started running again, the labs wouldn't accept smear tests so we couldn't do them but we did bloods and changed contraceptive implants throughout lockdown as we weren't happy with the guidance saying we could leave them another year!

We have to limit access a bit though as we can only fit 3 people in our waiting room and 5 in the nurses and a long wait in a waiting room would be a great place to spread COVID.

We were doing on the day only for all appointments but have changed in the last month as people wanted book ahead appointments.

We also give a rough time so 8.30 to 10.00 or 2-3 for appointments (and other times) and reception do put a note on the record if a patient has a meeting so we can phone around that within reason.

I just wish the hospitals would be more flexible too