To be upset there's no GP Appointments for my child

[YourAWizard]

Either face to face or on the phone! What is going on? Where are all the GPs?
My primary aged daughter is struggling with her mental health..there's issues I won't go into but she needs a referral to CAHMS and I was hoping the GP could help us with this. I ring up and there are never any phone appointments available, they just say ring back later. I was in the phone queue with 11 other people. I said to the receptionist before, "could I possibly make an appointment in advance? I don't mind waiting a couple of weeks." But no..not providing those either. Our local A&E is over run and I suspect this is why. Even the receptionist sounded disheartened

Ask the school? My daughters school referred her to cahms

Yes, you can refer through the school too

In most areas you can now self refer. Or as PP suggests, school can usually refer.

Child psychiatrist here - sorry to hear your child is struggling! We frequently receive referrals from school so worth exploring this avenue. Good luck

If she’s primary aged can a health visitor do a referral for her? Or her school?

In my area we self refer to CAMHS. My DD is 10 and they called me within 24 hours due to her age.

Check your area - in many areas you can self refer your child now. As others have said any professional involved with your child can refer if self referral isn't an option .

It’s been like this for decades. GPs were given NHS targets about how long patients were allowed to wait for an “emergency” appointment (24 hrs). So they just stopped making anything but same day appointments so it makes it look like you’ve not had to wait then. All NHS waiting times are fiddled with to make them appear much better than the atrocity they are.
You can try calling repeatedly from 7:59am, ask if they have an out of hours telephone GP service or call 111 where you can usually expect a call back from a Dr.

You can self refer

There just aren't enough GPs

Self refer op!

Do your doctors do e-consults? I am finding it much more helpful than speaking to the receptionists.

Also it's worth looking on your local authority website. You maybe able to refer through other means without seeing gp first.

In my area parents can refer to CAMHs, however after both the school and GP were spectacularly uninterested in my son's self harming, I didn't bother. (School gave him 2 ELSA sessions and GP emailed me a leaflet.) Local charity that offers counselling could only offer a sort of group stay and play thing which wasn't any good for him. There just isn't any support for MH in primary unless you tick other boxes for being at risk.

I hear you! It's just madness. I've been waiting for two months for a phone call from the Family Planning Clinic during which they will 'assess' me to see if I can have an appointment to have my Mirena removed!

The phone call is at 6pm on a certain date and they will try ONCE and if I don't answer of it doesn't connect I have to start at the beginning of the process.

I'm thinking about taking it standing under a mobile phone mast!

Even if you get a GP appointment and a referral there may be a very long wait. Or worse they might decline the referral. There may be other help the school can signpost you to.

You would probably be better off trying to get private counselling rather than a CAHMS referral. Before Covid the waiting time was eighteen months where I live, I dread to think what it is now.

The waiting lists are long in my area but depending on your child’s age and what’s going on you may be seen very fast. From initial phone call to assessment was 8 weeks for us.

In my city there is a triage service for mental health services for children- so following referral they will then decide where it sits- including camhs. If you cannot refer directly then ask school or depending on DC's age contact either the health visitor or school nursing team. It does not matter if your DC does not have an allocated worker (most children will not if just seen for routine health surveillance). Some one should get back to you. Like most services they are very understaffed and over worked but once you make contact and are on their radar they should be able to help.

In our area we have paediatric mental health workers attached to the practices - it's a fairly new service here and it's to try and support families who are struggling with children's mental health issues or while they're waiting for CAMHS. Maybe ask reception if there's anything like that? Did you mention to the reception team what the problem was? They may be able to signpost to a service.

I rang today and have a face to face appt on Monday morning with my GP. Phone answered straight away and sorted.
I think these problems are with the individual surgery not the whole of the service.

Do you have any other GP surgeries near you could switch to?

Er who are the 15% of people that think this is ok?!?! It’s a bloody disgrace.

It’s sad but we voted for this. The last government to hugely increase NHS spending in real terms was not a Tory one.

"Where are all the GPs?"

Not being GPs any more. Many of them anyway.

There are no longer enough GPs to go around. Which is exactly what the government want, as it will lead on to those who can afford it seeking a private opinion more & more.

Shortage of GPs here too, they cannot get a replacement at my local surgery and so are working with 1/5 less than there should be.

In the out-of-hours at night there is often 1 GP and 1 nurse covering 150 000 population in a radius that takes 1.5 hours to drive. They cannot get more staff and people can wait 15 hours for a call back.

Fewer Drs now chose to be GPs due to the hours/conditions.