That accessing a medical appointment shouldn't involve so many barriers and that there should be more recognition of the need for privacy?

[HarrysRedPants]

It's AIBU, I'm expecting a flaming, and I'm not posting for anything other than a rant but here goes.

I need to make an appointment to go to the GUM clinic. I won't go into details but have had some ongoing issues but due to the amount of stress I've been under and having felt unable to face my fear of going (I've been several times in the past but I'm anxious this time) I have put it off. I really, really struggle with medical stuff, particularly anything intimate. It takes a lot for me to even build up to making the call.

I found the courage to phone the clinic this morning. The last time I phoned around a year ago I was able to speak to a receptionist when I called, give a few details and then get booked in to see a female doctor. This time, it's answerphone only, leave a message, they will phone back, then a telephone consultation with a dr will be arranged in the first instance. So I left the voicemail, hoping they would phone back whilst I have privacy and an empty house. I have been browsing on my phone all morning and no call has come through- has gone straight to voicemail. I checked my settings and no reason why the call shouldn't have come through. So I've had to call back, leave another voicemail and am waiting again for a call that will hopefully come through this time.

Except I now no longer have an empty house, I live in a relatively new build with paper-thin walls and have no privacy. I don't want to have a conversation about intimate, personal medical problems when my family might hear. I totally get why they need to ask for a few details but when it was possible to speak to someone initially before, and not have to leave a message, it made it much easier for people who struggle for privacy or are working etc to choose a better time to phone. At the least, why can't there be an option to give details over email? There is absolutely nothing that allows this. Plus there is now the faff of having to have left two voicemails , I still haven't spoken to anyone and no idea when I will actually be able to have a physical appointment.

I just don't think it should be this difficult or that there should be so little regard in this day and age for the fact that it can be really difficult to pick up the phone in the first place and this feels like extra barriers. And so little regard for privacy. I've been thinking maybe I won't bother as a result.

I know there are people really struggling with far worse experiences within the NHS at the moment and that it seems trivial in comparison. I just don't understand why the appointments system for this bit has to be soo much worse than just under a year ago.

Rant over.

So what, you either wait for the holidays or take a day off if you can do that just to wait for a call

and if you do do this, you are criticised on MN for being a Gen Z snowflake www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4593371-overly-sensitive-employeesapprentices?page=9&reply=118667276

@Madamecastafiore as @AtomicBlondeRose said I don't think you're reading my posts properly. There is no expectation for them to ring me at a convenient time. I'm happy to phone them and wait for it to be convenient for them to answer the phone and if that means calling a few times then that's fine by me- I've no complaints over that whatsoever.

You say I could say to the admin staff it's not a convenient time to speak- well how is that helpful to them either? And how on earth will the appointment ever get made? I actually try to avoid having to not speak when they call as I'm aware they're busy etc.

As it goes, they called me back, luckily at that moment I had privacy and was able to explain to the receptionist the problem- she was great as I have always found them to be- and I was surprised that they could actually offer me an appointment tomorrow afternoon. So from that perspective, that's a brilliant service and I'm grateful for it.

It's awful and completely user-unfriendly and if you are hard of hearing/deaf/autistic/have other barriers to phone communication I don't know what happens.

To be brutally honest, mass exclusion.

My last GP phone call, I couldn't hear what she was saying for most of the phone call. My voice-to-text tech couldn't make sense of it either - the text just turned to gobbledegook.

A relative who has ASD won't talk on the phone but would possibly go in for an appointment with his usual GP with support in place; but he can't get an appointment in the surgery without first talking on the phone, which he won't do because of his autism.

YANBU

I genuinely don't understand why the whole appointments infrastructure in this country is so messed up

Appointments made by post, I mean it's ludicrous. So you never get the letter, or you need to change the time but no one ever picks up the phone, then they have the gall to complain that so many patients don't attend their appointments.

Endless rounds of callbacks, needing to call in a 5-minute window at 8.30 am, doctors expecting you to be able to take calls all day.

Think of how much time and money is wasted when you could just do what others countries do and hire a proper number of receptionists with a good scheduling software

I mean this is what happens in the other countries I've lived in:

If I need a GP appointment, I call the office, someone answers the phone, I ask for an appointment, and she finds something for me in the next few days.

If I need a referral, the GP sends it by email to the specialist, I call them a day or two later, and make an appointment.

It is not bloody rocket science and I do not understand why it keeps getting more and more complicated in the UK despite all the new technologies.

It's a total mess @dreamingbohemian and it seems that every GP surgery operates slightly differently. Ask your friends what happens at theirs and you'll be amazed at the variety of awful systems out there.

Our surgery you have two options - either it's urgent and you need same-day appointment and you have to call at 8.30am - or if it's for a routine appointment then you can get an appointment about 2-3 weeks hence. There is nothing in between!

If it's BV I used an online pharmacy after doing a home test, cost £22 for antibiotics which were delivered next day by post.

That sucks @maranella
Who started this 8.30 am malarkey and why is it allowed? It's crazy.

I can't fault my current GP, they're pretty good, but I've needed some referrals lately and it just seems crazy to me, waiting for a letter and then having to call 50 times to reschedule.

GP phone appointments are a real difficulty for us. Dd is autistic and can't process what people say on the phone - she even avoids phoning me. This means that she needs my support whenever she has a phone appointment. So we have to schedule them at times when we are both able to block out a whole morning or afternoon. As Dd is a student and I am a carer for her and her brother, it isn't impossibly difficult for us but can still be tricky. If I wasn't available I am not sure how she would access health services and as she has a number of medical conditions this is necessary fairly regularly.
As she has very few face to face appointments it means she doesn't get the chance to become comfortable with a familiar GP. Which in turn reduces the likelihood of her being able to manage appointments independently.

Mass exclusion is absolutely correct. I am hearing impaired too and phone consultations with the GP are a nightmare. That’s after entering the 8AM telephone lottery to get a phone appointment in the first place, which means usually 45 mins on hold then a conversation with the receptionist that I can’t hear properly. Then I have to wait potentially all day for the call back from the GP, which I can’t hear properly. If they say the GP will call in the morning or before 1PM, the call can sometimes come in the late afternoon instead.

I usually take a leave day from work because I can’t risk the call coming when I’m at work or on public transport. Like a pp I’ve waited all day for the call and been told by the surgery that they did call and I missed it, which is impossible because there were no missed calls on my phone which I was in any case watching like a hawk all day.

I have all the technology available to help me hear but it isn’t enough for me to hear most phone calls when I can’t see the person speaking. GP surgeries can’t or won’t understand this, or don’t care. The result is that I put off this whole ordeal until I’m completely desperate. It’s a horrible system for some patients and those who run the surgeries have no empathy with people who have difficulty with it.

@dreamingbohemian That’s how it used to be in the UK.They switched to “telephone triage” and it all went to hell. And the shortage of GPs has made it far worse.

It could be that their receptionist is off sick or on holiday which is why you have to leave a message. Unfortunately there is no money in the NHS to pay for cover on these occasions like they would have done previously.

When they call back, say "I think I may have BV, could I email you the details please".

I completely agree OP. The call back system means you have to talk when called, no matter where you are. I had to talk about my unusual discharge in the school car park the other day, because the GP called back whilst i was on the school run. If I didn't answer I would have had to call again at 8am, wait 40 mins etc etc for another call back the next day and so it goes on. I overheard another poor mum discussing her HRT on the phone to the doctors the other day too. You're absolutely correct that this system of calling back has no regard for privacy at all.

I had a similar situation recently. I actually got through to my GP surgery and they said they would get a doctor to ring me back. I asked if they could give me an idea of the time and they said no but it would definitely be after 12 noon. I work in a school so it's difficult to just pick up the phone. As it turned out they rang back at 10.30am! I had to stand out in the corridor giving all my private details while staff and students walked by. Then it turned out I was talking to a trainee doctor and she was concerned about something I said so she said she needed to talk to one of the other doctors and she would ring me back in the next half hour. I explained that I simply couldn't come out of the room again in half an hour as I was delivering a training session and had already walked out to take the initial call. The whole systems sucks 😡

YANBU at all.
I routinely avoid calling for help with issues I need to for months on end due to the complexity of getting through to the point of speaking to the people you actually need to and then justifying yourself repeatedly. I just don't have the energy for all of it.

(I'm not lazy, I have genuine health conditions that leave me so drained I often struggle to even speak.)

Last time I forced myself to go thorough it all, the doctor then told me I needed to call again to book another appointment for it as they couldn't deal with it. That was around 18 months ago and I still haven't called back.

I'm a former health care professional and acutely aware of how overstretched and underfunded the NHS is, but that can't be blamed for poor management which seems to be the case at many points throughout the service.

Our surgery you have two options - either it's urgent and you need same-day appointment and you have to call at 8.30am - or if it's for a routine appointment then you can get an appointment about 2-3 weeks hence. There is nothing in between

that actually isn't bad though - a lot of people would settle for being able to book for 3 weeks time. But we can't get a face to face at all at our surgery anymore, you have to be called back. Or you do the e-consult and they will either telephone you, or call you in. To be fair, the e-consult works really well, but it's a convoluted form and has lots of irrelevant questions. I have filled them in for both my mum (who got a face to face in the end) and my DH (who just wanted a referral, so doctor phoned him back and discussed and then made referral).