To want to give my GP surgery an award for being clueless

[MyNameHasBeenTaken]

My head is broken, having to deal with these people!
Me: I need to see my GP
Gp: no. You cant come here. Corona. Lockdown.
Me" fair enough. Can I do a repeat prescription please?
Gp: no. You have to phone. We cant touch a slip of paper you have touched
You cant come to the surgery to post it. There is a virus. Lockdown...
Gp : sends random text asking me to do a home blood pressure diary.
Me : goes to surgery for a home blood pressure machine, as requested in the text
Gp: it's over there, in the corner
Me : what is?
Gp: the blood pressure machine.
That anybody can use. And an old biro. And some scraps of paper to write on
Me: you cant give me a form for repeat medicine, I cant see a gp, cant borrow a biro (not that I wanted to), but you expect me to come in to the surgery and use a skin-contact machine that anybody can use.
With no cleaning materials to use on it between customers?

Yes, this is the same gp reception team who said " you can tell them you don't have a phone, when you ring in the morning for an appointment "

My GP surgery was great until the senior partner and a couple of the other GPs retired a few years ago. It's been awful ever since, from waaaay before Covid-19 came along.

Like, the phone line being buggered for months. Emails going unanswered. Promised follow-up phone calls not happening. Test results not being communicated. Medical records being inaccurate. Repeat prescription requests being refused without explanation or follow-up with the patient. You get the idea.

It's a combination of over-reliance on crap technology and/or far too few trained staff.

I have always been really happy with my surgery till recently.
I am having monthly telephone reviews, I ring to make an appointment as I always do. Told I have to fill in an Econsult form, I explain again it's for a follow up review not a new problem. No - I have to fill it in. I spend ages filling it in stressing in the comments section I just need a telephone appointment. A doctor rings me, he books me an appointment to speak to the doctor I usually speak to.
I happened to be there another time so I asked if I could book a telephone follow-up review, told no, you have to phone for an appointment. I politely pointed out the last time I tried to do that I was told to fill in the Econsult which meant two doctors ringing me instead of one.
She reluctantly booked me the appointment.
I am now trying to get something removed from my records that isn't accurate. It says my last telephone consult was for suspected Covid! It wasn't - covid wasn't even mentioned. I have phoned and emailed but it is still there

My surgery has been wonderful. Although appointments are not offered a doctor calls you within the hour for a telephone consultation. Much more convenient than pre COVID practice.
I’m in Scotland.

I sympathise OP, it seems like all GP surgeries have lost the plot over the last 9 months.

Example:
Me (on the phone): my daughter has a rash all over her body
Reception: you'll have to phone back at 8am
Me (8am next day): we don't have any phone appointments, call back tomorrow.
Reception (8am next day): your daughter is over 18 so she'll have to ring back herself.
Me: she's right here I'll pass you over
Reception: no, we can't do that, she needs to ring back herself.
Daughter rings: we don't have any appointments, call back tomorrow.

Absolutely ridiculous waste of time and effort. They didn't even try to establish how severe the rash was (meningitis??!). I am sure the reception staff have been trained to be as difficult as possible.

In the end, we went to speak to our local pharmacist who was VERY helpful and helped to reduce the rash down with hydrocortisone cream.

Why oh why are our GP surgeries treating us like this.

I am now trying to get something removed from my records that isn't accurate.

Me too. They've got my allergy mixed up with someone else's, which is dangerous. After six requests being ignored, I guess I'm going to have to be that twat who makes a 'formal complaint ', which is such a bloody waste of everybody's time and energy.

Medical staff at our surgery are brilliant. The problem seems to be with reception.
Been feeling under par since September last year.
Rang up to make an appointment but the options offered by the phone system didn't fit any of my requirements.
Went on-line to the Surgery website and found a page where I could describe my symptoms and then they would assess who needed to call me back, either a Doctor, HCP or Pharmacist. Response promised within 2 days.
Put my info in, immediately got a response saying that someone would be in touch and repeating the 2 day message.
A week later, having heard nothing, I sent a message to their reception stating I was still waiting for a response. The following day, I got an answer that I had a telephone appointment for a week's time.
Called by the Doctor on the appointed day, she said she wanted a face-to-face appointment and gave me an appointment for the following Monday.
Arrived at the Surgery, spent several minutes reading all the signs sellotaped to the door. The main message was that no-one was allowed on the premises without a temperature check performed at reception.
I go in, sanitise my hands and then 'tap myself in' on the attendance screen just inside the door.
I then present myself at reception.
Eventually "Yes, what do you want?"
"You need to take my temperature"
"Name?" I give my name
"Date of Birth" I give my DoB
Much keyboard action.
"You haven't got an appointment"
"Yes I have, I've just booked in on the screen"
"Oh well, if you've done that then you will have disappeared from my screen, what do you want?"
"The signs on the door say you need to take my temperature"
"We're not doing that anymore, go and take a seat in the waiting area"

I take a seat and am collected by the Doctor in due course. After an examination, she decides she would like some bloods but as it is 21st December, these will probably be better done after Christmas and makes me an appointment for 4th Jan.

4th Jan and I arrive, "tap myself in" and take a seat in the waiting area.
"You need to come back here so I can take your temperature"
Same receptionist as Dec 21st.
I go back to reception to get my temperature taken.
I'm wearing a re-useable cloth mask (as I was on 21st)
"You'll have to take that mask off and put one of ours on" and indicates a box of masks on the counter.
I get a mask and put it on.
"You've got that on backwards, the blue side should be on the outside!"
I refrain from pointing out that I only put it on that way round because that's how she had hers on . . . . .

@JamieLeesCurtains I had this after my hysterectomy.

It turns out the surgery hadn't coded my op properly so the Cervical Screening Authority autoinvited me as they didn't know my cervix had been incinerated a year previously...

Put it in writing to the GP surgery and ask them to code your lack of cervix properly and inform CSA..

Thank you @Sidge. That's really helpful. I even checked my discharge records from the hospital to reassure myself I really did have a BSO total hysterectomy!

My GP can be amazingly crap. They set up an Econsult form which I used for DD when she had a rash. I filled out the form with both home and mobile numbers and didn't leave the house due to first lockdown. I had an email confirming a reply within 36hrs and the two numbers that I had put.

The next morning I received a snotty message about not missing future appointments. Well dh had a message. I phoned to ask where they had sent this appointment to as I hadn't received anything? Nor had dh. The receptionist taps away and replies 'it wasn't sent as it was so late in the evening. But you really can't not turn up.'

How on earth am I meant to arrive at appointments they dont tell you that you have.

They can't even blame covid. I had DD2 a month early after being induced due to a blood disorder. I'm assuming the GP saw all these blood tests I was having in the run up, as I was given an appointment to see someone when DD was 5 weeks old. I assumed it was a postnatal check. The GP tells me I need to sort out this clotting situation before I give birth and gave me some blood test forms (for a different hospital to where my haematologist consultant is). I told him I've already had the baby and point at DD in the car seat on the floor. He then looked at his computer and told me no, I'm due next week. Advised me to get the blood tests as soon as possible and said goodbye.

DP has just found out the GP has completely fucked up his referral to a hospital consultant. Same surgery as me, the one with the broken phones. Sigh.

@Pippapotomus, I think you win, though. That's ... extraordinary.

My Dh (alive) was recorded as having died of cancer, by a previous GP surgery.
Another patient had the same name - but different address and twenty years older.

That was fun.

I told him I've already had the baby and point at DD in the car seat on the floor. He then looked at his computer and told me no, I'm due next week. Advised me to get the blood tests as soon as possible and said goodbye.

That is spectacular.

My parents moved house shortly after I was born and had to register with a new GP. During one of the health checks for me the nurse mentioned a condition my mother had never heard of so she queried what it was and why they were checking me for it. 'Oh well it's more common in the Greek community and as your daughter is half Greek we need to check for it.'

My mother was surprised as I have no Greek heritage. The nurse replied 'yes she has, because your husband is Greek'. My mother explained that her husband wasn't Greek and was told again that he was.

Eventually it transpired that someone at the surgery saw my Dad during the registration and thought he looked Greek and recorded that as his ethnicity based on his appearance! My ethnicity was then recorded as half-Greek as a result of that. My mother was perplexed as to why they didn't just ask for our ethnic background instead of assuming.

Apparently it was a right pain to get it sorted!

thought he looked Greek

Don't tell me, he was wearing a toga and spouting Socrates?

I don't understand how you could not arrange an appt to see the GP, yet you quote all the responses you got as if they are made by a GP, some of them face to face in the same room?

You also said " goes to surgery for a home blood pressure machine, as requested in the text"

At my surgery, that means they LEND you a home BP machine to do frequent readings at home . They do NOT expect you to attend the surgery daily to take your own reading there. You then text the results. (My GPsurgery uses an automated system called Florence. "Florence" texts me twice a day to remind me to take my BP at home (on the machine they lent me) and send "her" the result, by replying to her text. The GP surgery monitor the results and act accordingly (text messages, phone consults with DR, arranging any face to face tests etc. Both new and repeat prescription requests are co-ordinated between GP pracice and my preferred local pharmacy and I pick them up there. I'm really impressed with how efficient and workable it has been.

@2bazookas, I'm envious. My GP surgery has none of that Florence / loan stuff.

@JamieLeesCurtains - My DM was in the same situation, in the end, she scribbled across the letter "If you can find it, you can smear it!" and returned it in the post!

Can you not get a cheap payg phone, OP?