To ask if other peoples’ GP surgeries are this shit or is it just mine?

[Whatisthisfuckery]

Every day, multiple times a day for the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to call the GP surgery. Every time apart from one I have been told the phone lines are at capacity and to call back later. The but one I was told that they were shut for staff training. Our doctors is one of a chain of about 8 in the area, so my guess is that they have one person on the phones taking calls for what is more or less the entire town of 150,000 people, it’s a disgrace.

I can’t use patient access because it’s for my DS who isn’t old enough; I don’t want to call out of hours because it’s not an emergency; I can’t find an email address to email them instead and you can’t just walk in off the street to talk to them.

I literally cannot contact the doctors, at all.

Is this unusual or are we just unable to access a GP anymore?

Mine is also a bit shit. If you're lucky enough to get through (after the system hanging up on you a couple of times) they are usually out of appointments for the day and then you have to wait for a phone call back from a doctor/nurse to arrange an appointment. It usually takes up the day waiting to get through and then waiting for a call back. There has actually been no difference in the speed of the system since pre covid times.
Once you can get an appointment it's great but the process just seems quite clunky.

Oh, and I asked how to link my DS to my patient access. The receptionist didn’t know. She said she’d find out and call me back. I’m not holding out a great deal of hope as I made a complaint a while ago and they never got back to me about the outcome of that either. I’m assuming there wasn’t one.

They really are beyond the pale.

Not just yours

I have over 300 minutes logged on my phone where over the course of a fortnight I've been on hold trying to get through to mine.

Before Covid we could book appointments online or go in person to book which I often did, they've stopped all that too.

My deaf 94yo dad ended up in hospital 5 times last year because his GP refused to see him face to face - even after the 2nd hospital discharge letter said that telephone appointments were not appropriate for his condition and level of hearing loss. They only have 1 practice in their small town.
My ILs GP does home visits at the drop of a hat. In fact, while dad's GP was refusing, 1 day he was there twice - a.m. because FIL had a stomach upset and p.m. because MIL had a sore mouth.

Ours is almost impossible to get an appointment at.

Completely unable to reach GP either via phone or e-mail. Out of frustration I walked a detailed note over. It worked! They were getting bad before Covid, though. Ever since they started offering a pay annually for “better” access service (central London)

Yours sounds absolutely wonderful compared to mine OP.
Can you phone at 08:00? No, I will be on a motorway, taking a child to school. What about tomorrow? No, he has school every weekday.
Or the "a doctor can call this afternoon"
What time?
Any time between one and 5
Can you narrow it down a little?
No, sorry
Ok, I am in work until 2:30 and i am not allowed my phone. Then i am driving to collect 2 kids from different schools. If i am lucky, i will be home by 5.
No, there is nobody else at school who lives in our village. No, I cant leave a 6 year old to 8 miles home on her own along a main road....
And something as simple as a repeat prescription... no you have never had those tablets. Despite having an empty box, with my sticker on. Dated within a couple of weeks. Obviously the receptionist knows more about my medication than me. With my empty box.

They have (and admitted to) losing a repeat request.
Tried to ring ds during a school class.
Claimed ds does not exist.
Refused to register ds without the other half of his surname (not used for over 10 years)
To mis-quote a poster somewhere before me; I will be glad to get rid of them when I move!

I ended up writing a letter to my GP. Had to post it as there is no way of getting to the letter box on the surgery door as the gates are permanently locked. No idea how you'd get in for an appointment.

Mine are great.

Emails answered the same day
Will do telephone appointments, and face to face if needed

My parents' surgery is so, so bad. You can literally ring upwards bof 200 times (no exaggeration!!)
They're also rude and uninterested!

My one is brilliant, always answer, super helpful and friendly, knowledgeable, take you seriously. They're also make accommodations for my son no matter what (he has ASD) and nothing is too much trouble.

Ours is no good either, rang several times a day for nearly two weeks to eventually get through to be told they still aren't doing face to face appointments so incase we needed a face to face to ring the extended hours number (which we got through to straight away and given a telephone appointment for next day)
Friend at different surgery, less than a mile a way was ringing for days as well.

If you have suggestions for how they can make their service better you can talk to their patient participation group (ppg).
There are much more efficient systems they could use. My surgery has a separate emergency line and a duty doctor every day to deal with emergencies for example.
The surgery may not actually know how many people are being shut out unless they're told, and via the ppg or practice manager is the best way to tell them.

My surgery sent out a group text message recently - our phones lines are down you may have difficulty getting through - no change from normal then.

Mine is good - toddler had unexplained rash. Got through to arrange appointment at 8.10 (lines open at 8). Telephone consult at 8.50. Face to face at 10am as she couldn't diagnose on the phone.

Toddler back at nursery by 10.30 once she ruled out chicken pox

Just yours, my surgery is amazing. You can book on-line, always get through on the phone, if it's urgent they will endeavour to get you to speak to a doctor same day. I also like that I can speak to the nurse when it's something 'minor' e.g. I had a rash the other day and was worried about it, I sent photos and then spoke on the phone to her, it was brilliant. I hope they continue to offer this post lockdown.

@comfyoldcardi

I would call 111 and tell them. They can arrange a gp appt for you.

I was coming on to add this exact post. My DP had similar issues with his GP and called 111 out of desperation and they made an appointment with him at his own GP practice. If yours is part of a network you may get an appointment at one of the connected practices, but it will no doubt be over the phone initially anyway.

DP spoke to the doctor about it when he had his call and reading between the lines the GP wasn't happy about it as apparently 111 appointments are made on top of their normal routine appointments so puts everything out of schedule, but needs must if you need to see a doctor.

If you do manage to get an appointment that way I would also find out what the complaints procedure for your practice is.

Someone on our local FB group posted a screenshot the other day - they'd been hitting redial on their phone from the moment the lines opened and got to over 200 calls before they got through.

Are you in Wales? Mine the same you gave to ring at 8 for urgent appointments at 10 for routine. By the time you get through the appointments will be all gone and you have to do the same thing the following day. I’ve given up as I don’t have time to sit redialling over and over to get through

I totally get your frustration and it's not good enough.

Just to give some perspective though, I work in a large medical centre and GPs are doing more and more phone consultations to avoid having Patient's physically in the building, this is clogging up the phone lines meaning that Patient's can't get through to our Receptionists to book anything. I know that won't be the case everywhere but it certainly will be in many cases; and it shouldn't be an excuse but sadly we are where we are currently.

I'm glad you got through in the end, it should be better.

I can get through to the “your call is important” message but it never actually gets answered. I had a message to call them about my son last week and was genuinely in the queue for two hours before I gave up.

As he is under 18 we can’t use the e-service and they won’t call my work number despite me asking them to. They just leave an answerphone message asking me to call them but they don’t answer the phone ........

@Whatisthisfuckery Nope, not just you, and not just your GP Surgery.

There was a thread a few days ago about this.

Here it is. If you are interested in reading my 3 responses, they start halfway down page 8. (And they start at 11.05am on 17 March 2021.)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4194322--Call-at-8am-for-a-GP-appointment?msgid=105642570

My GP's surgery is wonderful. I appreciate the strain they are under and the fantastic job they are doing.