GP surgery only had 5 appointments available on Friday afternoon- how do I complain?

[AutumnApple]

GP surgery is an absolute joke. I already have to make a complaint due to a serious mistake in my DCs diagnosis of a life threatening condition.

On Friday afternoon, the Friday before a Bank Holiday, I rang at dead on 2.00pm for an afternoon appointment as I was sent a text saying to call for a telephone consultation due to an urgent query I’d raised with them. Phone message saying I was 2nd in queue. On hold for 20 minutes! then got through and told no more appointments left! Apparently people walk in and queue up for appointments.

Thing is DH had left the surgery no more than 5 mins previously and he said it was empty.

I asked how many appointments were available as it seemed odd they’d all gone already. Receptionist kept me on hold for 15 minutes to answer this and came back with ‘a handful’.

Also could not book a normal appointment as they had not released them yet so was expected to call back and stay in the queue for an hour. Tried this morning and 33 in the queue.

Lots of people complain about this surgery in our area. It is extremely badly managed. How can I get an official body to investigate it?

Not vote Tory.

www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/complaint/

Raise it with the practice directly first - they’ll be able to let you know what normal procedure is, what should have happened and if Friday was ‘normal’ or if something went wrong with the system / a specific error in how you were managed.
Regarding the building being empty - that could be normal at lots of practices at about 2pm as doctors will be spending time on visits, palliative cases, urgent letters and calls from other teams etc and often don’t start seeing patients face to face until a bit later.
My afternoon clinic starts at 2pm but I keep it to just phone calls ideally until 2.30 in case I get stuck on a visit - as they are less disruptive to move to later in the day.
It sounds like their walk-in policy wasn’t well explained or advertised to patients which is rubbish.

Yes if I need an appointment urgently I do an econsult which usually gets me a same day phone consult, or I queue up at 8.20 in the surgery which always works.

But it was like that pre covid. And generally our surgery is great.

You rang the surgery at 2pm and wanted an appointment THE SAME DAY??? On a FRIDAY before a BANK HOLIDAY??

You're dreaming!

This. At ours you have to ring at 8.30. Wait until a queue and still not guaranteed an appointment that day.

Wait in a queue not until 🤔

Maybe I've misunderstood your post but I'm honestly shocked that they had 5 afternoon appointments left at 2pm on a Friday - have to call our surgery before 12pm to be added to the afternoon phonecall list, let alone get a F2F appointment

Is this a joke ?

are you joking?

My doctors release same day morning appointments at 8:30am and afternoon appointments at 2pm. Not heard of queuing up at the practice for one though

I have an appointment tomorrow, that I booked on 22 July. Fair enough, it wasn't urgent, but that was the first one they could offer me.

So, it's not specific to your surgery. IME you can complain all you like to the surgery/practice manager, but nothing's going to change.

Nothing's going to change quickly and it's not like "they" don't already know, but make your feelings known to your MP and change your voting habits.

You called at 2pm wanting an appointment within the next 3 hours ? I've only been seen that quickly during lockdown or when I had a baby.

Our surgery has online, in-person and phone booking but appointments for that day are gone by 8:30am ime. Afternoon appointments are often non-emergency appointments booked weeks ago unlike morning appointments which are generally emergencies.

I’ve not voted as if they don’t have any appointments, they don’t have any appointments.

But I agree it’s absolutely shocking and a reflection of many gp practices around the country at the moment.

I have needed antibiotics for 5 days.
111 have asked them to prescribe them.
They won’t prescribe me any until they’ve had a phone conversation with me and I need to wait for them to ring.

I am going to go to A&E today which I really didn’t want to do as it’s a waste of both their time and mine.

Ring 111 and explain.
If they don’t do anything ring them back after 2 hours.
If they still don’t help and you feel it’s urgent then you’re going to have to go to A&E unfortunately.

You're very fortunate your surgery still offers appointments, mine doesn't seem to anymore. I tried to get one for DS a few weeks ago, after the receptionist asked me what it was for, she told me they wouldn't be able to see him and directed me to an urgent care clinic instead. It wasn't urgent, or particularly serious, I'm 99% certain he has Sever's Disease, but as a competing athlete, I would have liked a proper medical opinion/advice rather than Google. Certainly wasn't worth a trip to urgent care so he's just carrying on suffering until he hopefully grows out of it. I just hope Dr Google is right.

Mine hasn't had one for over 2 years- it was stretched before covid.

You have to phone up an d be triaged, if you dont meet the cut you have to call up 5 days later- rinse and repeat. This is for a phone call- not an unperson appointment- they can only be given after a phone call and the first treatment has failed to work.

My GP surgery are useless. I phone once at 8:27am for an appointment. It was too early and told to phone back at half past. Phoned back three minutes later, there were 12 people on hold and by they time they got to me there were no appointments left. No wonder 111 is swamped.

I can’t get an appointment until October and that’s a phone one.

The OP seems to have fucked off, but I too am wondering what the issue with having 5 appointments available in a single afternoon is.

just change surgery if you're not happy

I persisted with our old GP surgery because they were brilliant with the kids, literally could not fault them when the kids were ill. They were terrible with adults though.

We moved a few miles away and changed GP surgery to one closer and the appointment system is far better! It did make me wonder why I didn't change sooner!

But it shouldn't be that way, should it? At the very least you should be able to speak to someone.

5 isn't very many at all. They last 7-10 minutes, which is less than an hour of appointment time in what I would guess is a 3-4 hour afternoon surgery.

You have very unrealistic expectations.

Many people seem to be blissfully unaware of how absolutely fucked the NHS is currently. I think what you have experienced is the general rule for the majority of GP's now rather than the exception to it.

Not all surgeries are like this. I called Friday morning for an urgent appt. Was seen at 10.45.

It sounds more short staffed than badly managed.

And the receptionist told you they had a "handful" of appointments, not literally 5. But maybe they did only have 5 appointments that were available to book on the day, and after 2pm.

Actually thinking about it, it's pretty amazing that they had any urgent same day appointments left at 2pm!