To be utterly fed up at the Doctors Surgery System?

[PinkFishies]

I’ve been trying to get in touch with my GP (NHS in England) due to having abnormal bleeding for a week now.

(I suspect I have Endo or PCOS or some other condition relating to gynea, but that’s another story)

We can’t book appointments in advance, we have to call the surgery on the day when phone lines open at 8:30am.

I work 8-4 Monday to Friday on a busy reception so it’s almost impossible to be free. Luckily today the reception was covered so I took myself to a quiet room to begin calling at 8:30.

I rang 131 times. I was met with the engaged tone every time. On my 132nd attempt after 40 minutes of trying I was put into a call queue. After 10/15 minutes of waiting the receptionist answered and told me “Unfortunately all slots are now fully booked. You will have to try again tomorrow morning”.

I just burst into tears. My issue isn’t something I can go to a walk in centre for. Or ring 111. I wouldn’t dare go to A&E but I can imagine a lot of people will do for certain things because seeing a GP is near impossible.

There is no point changing surgeries. All our surgeries in the local area sit under the same umbrella and all have the same system.

The system is utterly broken. I can’t see it getting any better. Nobody has the answers. Don’t have the money to go private. I really wish I did.

This.

And here we have the reason that people who really need an appointment can’t get one- someone who won’t pay £2 for some anti fungal cream because the “it ought to be covered”.

That was to CravingCamembert who should be ashamed.

Can I ask where you saw this? I'm registered with the Babylon app and it also has the details of my GP and I was asked for permission to share the notes from the consultation with them.

If you pay for a Babylon private appt (it’s either pay per appt or subscription) you stay registered at your GP. If you sign up for Babylon GP at hand then that becomes your GP practice and they deregister you from your physical GP practice

I hate to admit it but I've found the posher the city/town we've lived in - the better the experience has been with regards to GPS. Maybe more good GPS want to live in those areas too- whereas my FILs experiences in Medway always sound totally like Fawlty Towers. It does seem like an absolute lottery out there. My son has had a good experience in North London too , as per the above poster.

@PinkFishies
I am in Germany and lived through 60 years of the system. I do have a GP as a first port of call and the usual check ups, but I do not have to go through her. She gets the infos for the file though.

Thanks @Moraxella. I've got the app through work so it's the same as the subscription.

I would use I-gp online app. Pay £15 for consult and they send the prescription to local chemist. Don't have to talk to human. Their algorithm follows NICE guidelines.

The online GP things are absolutely no use to people like myself with several chronic conditions

You need to contact your local CCG and health authority. My surgery uses SystmOnline which is a brilliant way to access your health records, practice details, but especially book appointments. I am in the north of England, not in an especially wealthy area, but my GP practice is wonderful. We are in a rapidly developing area, so patient numbers must be going up, but still I could get an appointment for tomorrow online now. During the last really difficult years for the NHS I have never been unable to get a telephone or face to face appointment. Your surgery needs to be shaken up.

Yes probably not for complex health problems that impact each other. It's alright though for getting prescription for simple things, UTI, steroid cream for eczema.

OP I feel your pain …..

I avoid the doctors like the plague (ha ha) but I’m on day 13 of the dreadful cold / cough lurgy that’s going round at the moment. I was bed bound for 7 days and my adult son nagged me into trying to see my GP because he’s never seen me so ill….. I’m self employed and had to shut my shop which has royally screwed me over this month…..

So I rang bang on 8.30 on Monday as I thought maybe I now needed antibiotics….. after two minutes of recorded messages about low staffing, Covid, Etc etc (which according to test it wasn’t) I finally got transferred into the queue and I was number 24. Decided to sleep it off as much as possible - forced myself into my shop today and am now back in bed dosed to the eyeballs with anything I can get my hands on and hoping I’m on the road to recovery but honestly I feel pretty delirious and too fatigued to contemplate any other route to access medical attention so if I wake up tomorrow and feel shit still I’m going to have to try and muscle through or my business will go under…..

I know other people have it worse but honestly the system is now so broken I think the secret strategy is that we all go and die quietly.

I can’t afford anything private - no such thing as “only” 50.00 or whatever in my current budget. Was surviving reasonably well and breaking even in my business until fuel crisis and cost of living etc …., happy to work hard to support myself but if my health goes I’m fucked.

I feel for everyone sharing frustration here …..

I agree about the prescription cost, but won't some people need to see a doctor so they can find out whether anti fungal cream is what they need to treat their condition, and how long they need to use it for, how often etc?

Yes indeed.

I know people who ring the doctors for adult paracetamol, hydrocortisone and a host of other cheap over the counter meds because they get free prescriptions and would rather sit on the phone and beg for said prescription then wait an hour in Lloyds to pick the thing up rather than nip to Superdrug and buy a 27p box of ibuprofen.

It's a weird sense of entitlement that is endemic in the population now unfortunately.

Clearly the NHS cannot cope.

I'm waiting for swabs at the doctors
I work FT, the doctors does one late night. Add to that my periods are 8 days and it starts getting tricky to fit in
They've been cancelled twice now as only one nurse is trained to do them. Just had a call this morning to cancel them again as she is off sick
Argh

The call in the morning situation drives me bonkers. At my surgery the trick is to call just before their staff meeting at 9am, so you are in the call queue and wait the 15mins when everyone else drops off because it tells you to call back, and then you are front of the queue when they finish their meeting (which takes place 30mins after opening! Just why!).

Who benefits from it?! It must be a horrible job on reception fielding it all, it's unlikely the people that should be priority for that day do actually get seen and what are the GPs doing before the first appointments are booked?

When you go in for something and they say we'll need to review your medication in a week, why can't they book you back in for a follow up at that point?!

If you have something you could wait a couple of days or a week to be seen for, why can't you book that in?

If you need a call back, why can't they give you a rough time slot?

My DH is deaf. He had some tests done elsewhere, they sent the results to the GP. GP won't send a copy of the results letter to us, we can't get an appt and because my DH works all over the place, a phone appt doesn't suit because even if he can pick up the call, he might not be somewhere he can hear the other person properly. He asked what adjustments they could make for him and they said he was to find an interpreter to take the call for him!

know that the NHS is under pressure, but we've reached a stage where patients are increasingly unable to access the system in the first place.

Yep this is the thing. I have massive sympathy with people working in the NHS around the pressures they face. I don’t expect to get an appointment quickly any more and that’s a given.

What I find really frightening though, and this is a new thing, is that it’s almost impossible even to communicate with anyone who works for the NHS now if you’re a member of the public. Unless you’re actually sitting In A&E or you are on a cancer pathway for example, actually getting to speak to someone who works for the NHS on the telephone is a full time job.

Its really scary now.

Pharmacist can do all that.

It is scandalous. Pre ‘Covid’ at my GPyou could get an appt usually at the latest the next day. Three weeks ago -needed an appt and was allocated one today. I paid to see a private Go and chose my appointment time the same day. I would have been suicidal if I’d had to wait. No exaggeration.
I spoke to a friend who works for Health Watch and said I was amazingly lucky to a) have got through on the phone and b) to get an appointment within the month.

@PinkFishies

if you see that worried
take a sick day and go to surgery at 8am and sit there after telling the receptionist you need to be seen and it is a matter that you can only share with the doctor and it’s urgent

I think they legally have to see you and no doubt some one won’t turn up

hope you feel better

We also have a ring on the day system. Can’t make appointments in person and it’s not worth bothering to ring after 815.
last time I went, I got routed through the urgent care centre who told me I had to see my GP. So almost a month before I could see my GP.

every surgery here is the same. It’s completely broken.

I don’t understand this. It’s not the same across the country.

I live in Sheffield. Phone after 8.30 for on the day. Answers straight away.

Can always book a f2f or telephone appt within about 3-4 days.

Depends where it is. I had an infection at the very top of my thigh. The pharmacist wouldn't sell me the cream as it was 'too near the genital area'. I wasn't going to show him so I ended up with a prescription for stronger cream from my GP who prescribed over the phone as I'd had it before.

Agreed @PinkSparklyPussyCat. I have had intimate rashes that had to be looked at and I would not show a pharmacist, not even if they had a small consulting room.