Doc Appointment Waiting Times AIBU *title edited by MNHQ at OP's request*

[Desmondo2021]

Why is it OK for doctors appointments to ALWAYS be a minimum of 20 minutes late. Why don't they just change their system so it actually works and you get seen at your appt time or within a few minutes. I understand occasionally they may have had unforeseen events that delay later appointments but I can't think of a time when they have EVER been running to schedule. (Currently sat in the carpark waiting for my 09.40 appointment and now not going to fit in a run before work so feeling double enraged!)

Grrrr.

Have asked for title to be corrected, damn autocorrect!

You have no idea why ether are over running. The person in front of you could have booked to have a mole checked and just then disclosed they are a victim of rape and domestic violence. Someone could have collapsed in the waiting room or treatment room.

When I worked in GP surgery 20yrs ago, one of our GPs had a heart attack at his desk mid surgery, and while he was being wheeled out on a trolley by 2 ambulance crews trying to keep him alive, his patient were moaning about the wait.

YABU.

There does seem to be an acceptance that this is the norm in GPs. Completely understand that there are emergencies and unforseen circumstances, but not every day. More than once I've had the first appointment of the day and still not been seen for 20 minutes past the appointment time. I can only assume it's because the doctor is busy with admin or whatever. In which case, surely the solution is to build in an admin time to the morning and have the first appointment later? Must be a nightmare to constantly run behind all day every day

@SoddingWeddings

You have no idea why ether are over running. The person in front of you could have booked to have a mole checked and just then disclosed they are a victim of rape and domestic violence. Someone could have collapsed in the waiting room or treatment room.

When I worked in GP surgery 20yrs ago, one of our GPs had a heart attack at his desk mid surgery, and while he was being wheeled out on a trolley by 2 ambulance crews trying to keep him alive, his patient were moaning about the wait.

YABU.

So that would have to be happening several times a day every day for your reasoning to be accurate! And I'll take a wild guess that it's not!

I've had what I thought would be routine appointments suddenly take up 30+ minutes of the doctors time as they turned out to be pretty serious emergencies.

All it takes is one of these or for the dr to be called out for things to get behind.

Would you say the same thing when the doctor cuts you off half way through explaining something because your 5 minute appointment is up?

It's frustrating. I suspect the answer is that doctors are expected to see too many people in not enough time. There should be gaps built in to allow the doctor a break/to catch up, but I'm sure there aren't enough because fundamentally GPs are expected to do more work than is reasonable. And they don't feel they can turn sick people away any more than they already do.

Because the appointments + associated admin take more time than the allocated 10minutes.

Because they are expected to see too many people

The alternative is yes cutting you off at the end of your 5 minutes, or less appointments available. It only takes one appointment to overrun for their schedule to be out, if you imagine in the first hour you've got to see 10 patients, each one overruns by 1 minute your already 10 minutes late. That's with nothing taking massively longer than expectes

Also you can't always predict what's going to take a long time. Some days you might be running to time and sat around twiddling your thumbs, you can't waste time on the NHS so ergo pack the day as full as possible and patients can wait

It does seem to happen consistently across most GP surgeries - to make sure that it absolutely does not happen would mean creating longer appointment slots for each patient AND scheduling longer gaps in between each patient.

That would significantly reduce the number of people they could see each day - meaning much much longer waits to actually get an appointment plus factor in the percentage of no shows then you'd end up with the valuable resource of a GP being under used.

It's a trade off / risk assessment thing.

Plus you've got to factor in the humanness of both the GP and the patient. Some GPs are going to want to spend longer with a patient that they might have budgeted for. Some patients underestimate what they will get out of one small appointment, or have not understood that they needed a longer appointment or a different practitioner.

Because they are expected to deal with everything in 10 minutes. Totally unsustainable.

Whilst a lot of the issues with appointments being late are due to appointments running over/emergencies etc there are also just some terrible time keepers.

I remember a couple of years ago I had an appointment booked for the first appointment of the day at 8am as it was the only time I was available that week (I was working 9am till 7pm for the next two weeks at work) so I was there at the surgery for 7:55am so I wouldnt be late.

8am came and went and I wasnt called into my appointment, at 8:05 the doctor swanned in through the front door of the office in no rush or with any urgency, stopped off at the desk for a little chit chat with the receptionist before disappearing into the treatment room. At 8:15 - 15 minutes after my appointment time - I was called in to my appointment with zero apology for the lateness. So I should have been in and out by 8:10, by the time my appointment was done it was 8:25 and so the doctor was already 2 appointments behind which I imagine will have only got worse through the day if any other appointments ran over even just by a minute or two.

Well doctors are humans too and normal rubbish happens to them such as traffic etc - more than once I've had the first appointment of the day and the doctor had arrived into the surgery 10 minutes after my appointment time, so they've started the day running late, or it only takes a couple of people to go over their allotted 5 minutes to create a backlog (and based on how hard it is to get an appointment people often want to talk about more than one thing so this must be quite common)

Have you ever taken longer than 10 minutes for your GP appointment? If so then you are one of the reasons GPs run late... They are given 10 minutes to assess a problem, order any tests and give advice. Its very challenging and occasionally there will be patients who speak for a very long time, or people who come in with a list of problems or more complex patients that need sorting out. I dont think you can blame GPs but the system and what is expected of them.