How on earth does anyone get a GP appointment?!

[2023b]

My first time calling in about 5 years, probably longer. Moved house recently and registered with a local GPs. Told appointments for nonurgent issues given out on a Monday morning and to call at 8am. I havent been able to do this for a number of weeks due to working at this hour. Obviously this is a non urgent issue but an issue that needs sorting none the less.
Been calling up non stop (37 times so far) since 8am, listen to the automated message which eventually cuts you out.

What the heck am I supposed to do? Ive taken a half day off today (genuinely) just to organise an appointment for a future date then to try and take that date off too. When I went in person to register I was told this is the process, to keep trying on a Monday morning, all other days are for urgent same day appt. I cant keep letting the weeks pass by... Is this what its come to :(

Sometimes GPs will release appointments during their lunch break or otherwise protected time. It's not great to be honest but sometimes they have to. Receptionists shouldn't ever be rude that is unacceptable, but they do have a tricky job of managing calls which exceed available appointments by a ridiculous amount.

So many surgeries are using the call at 8 for a same day appointment. I assume it must be because too many people who had normal appointments booked eg within 2 weeks didn't turn up. I'm surprised they're able to get away with it though, it's like the bloody Hunger Games.

@2023b I’m really glad you got your appointment - even though it did take forever.

You said you that you spoke to local surgeries when you changed GP? Nevertheless, it may be worth changing. A quick scan of mumsnet threads shows the huge discrepancy between different practices. At my old surgery, it was a 3-4 week wait for a routine appointment but I never waited more than 20 minutes on the phone.

I recently changed to a new doctors and I can book appointments through their app. There are always appointments available.

I did the 8am game this morning, phoned at 8.00 exactly and was in a queue for 10 mins. As others have posted I'm fortunate my job enables me to do that.

Surprisingly the receptionist didn't ask for any details and gave me an appointment this afternoon with an advanced nursing practitioner? I had to double check she would be able to prescribe what I'm going for (mental health related) but all good apparently.

I do have access to Private GP through work but have no idea what prescription costs would be so never tried it for something I am expecting medication for.

I can get through to mine ok and do phone quite a lot as I have a child with a chronic illness and a mother with dementia. Today was the first time in years I was phoning for me! But as usual the problem wasn't getting through - it's having to be available all day for a call back. Fine if you've nothing better to do but not great otherwise. Then the doctor tries to avoid bringing you in by diagnosing you over the phone. Sometimes they will ask you to come and see them later that day, so that's the whole day written off between waiting for the call and going to appointment. At the moment I'm trying to decide whether to go and do my mum's shopping (she's housebound) and risk having to chat about my medical issues in the middle of Tesco. Oh for the days when you rang up and asked for an appointment or turned up to open clinics on set mornings. It really is crap.

Ours is a big city centre joint pratice and still does this for advance bookings.

sounds like your gp is pretty rubbish. At ours you have to call at 8am (any day)but now they have a queue system so unless there are a colossal number of callers you’re on hold and eventually get through.

it is hard to get non urgent appointments (v few are available for some reason)
but moderately easy to have a same day one.

in your shoes I’d speak to the receptionist and explain your predicament. If you’re super nice to ours she can often be helpful.

@BeetleyCarapace So true. I've had my cataracts removed (privately to avoid 2yr wait which may be longer than I have left). I needed eye drops post operatively, private script - cost in excess of £50. Now I am seeing a different eye surgeon in his clinic in a NHS hospital, and he is running a series of blood tests for which, no doubt I'll be charged. It's at times like these we realise just what we get with the NHS and why it is in such desperate trouble

Re cost of private prescriptions: just paid £120 for a month for period pain & spotting (3 meds). More painful than the cramps.

same here, I have to jump on the phone at 8.30am sharp to be in the queue, which can take 30mins. The reception cant decided if we are allowed to have an appt, so all they do is take my details and tell me a GP will call me back to see if im qualified for an appt.

After that I have to keep my phone on and be available to pick up anytime because you just dont know when they will call and it is always a private number so that you cant call them back...

I can not book appt in advance. I can not even walk in to book one in person! It has to be the 8.30am NHS lucky draw!

Honestly, I have lived in a few countries before moving to the UK, I just cant believe this is a first world country!

It’s been more difficult getting through on the phone, but to be fair, I usually persevere and eventually get through to a receptionist.
However, Our surgery is about to make all bookings online only. That leaves older and vulnerable people who aren’t online totally excluded.

A few weeks ago I had a cold that had dropped onto my chest after 3 weeks. I was really struggling with my breathing, I was suffering with incontinence from the coughing, etc so I emailed the drs with my symptoms and said I was worried about a chest infection (I'm prone to the ). They made me an appointment for 10 days later.

By the time the appointment came, I had badly bruised ribs from the coughing and was in agony all time time, my phlegm had turned green and awful tasting. My appointment was a phone call. Beer in mind if had these symptoms 5 weeks by this point. They called me, read my symptoms to me off the screen and asked me to confirm I had them, which I did. They (a nurse called) then said that I needed to be seen in person with those symptoms, but they had no appointments so I'd need an out of hours one, at a hospital that was a 20 mile round trip away. I accepted it of course but was a bit cross that they knew my symptoms 10 days earlier, so why wasn't a face to face booked at that point, and not waste a second appointment that someone else could have used - or made me drive all that way unnecessarily?!

At the face to face they decided it was viral not bacterial, that a 5 week cough was still too early to worry about it is 8 weeks that you worry - then told me I hadn't really had my cough for 5 weeks, it was really only 5 days as "I just have got a new infection 5 days earlier and just bad luck that the old one ended on the same day". I kid you not.

So I'm now at 8 weeks of a hacking cough, still got painful ribs and cannot see the point in trying to see a dr again... not that I've seen an actual dr yet anyway.

The system is badly broken - or deliberately mismanaged. The staff are excellent - but you just cannot get the appointments you need - so out of hours and A&E also end up overwhelmed. So the Tories can say it's not working and privatise it...

I never ring anymore I stand In reception like loads of other people at 7.55

37 times would definitely be a good day for me... I'm usually in the 90s. Can be over 200 on a Monday! We can't book any appointments in advance unless the doctor books it themselves as a follow-up, so the 8am phone call is always for a call back/appointment that day unless you're booking in to see the nurse. It's such a stupid system, you'd think they'd have a better way by now!

Can you switch to a surgery that uses eConsult? Mine is very efficient, I've needed an urgent appointment before, so filled in the form in the morning, and then I was called back an hour later with an appointment the same day. If it's not urgent, they take a bit longer to call back, but I get an appointment in a reasonable time frame. How anyone is supposed to get appointments via calling in the current circumstances is beyond me!

We do online consultations, GP then rings you if you qualify for an appt.

My partner needed a GP appointment last Tuesday. We both rang when the phone line went on, he was number 6 in the queue, me number 7. I hung on just in case he was cut off for any reason. He got through 10 minutes later, so I hung up, and I heard him telling the Receptionist that he thought he had Appendicitis. He was called back with an appointment at 9.30am. The GP examined him and sent him straight to the surgical decision making unit in the local hospital. We got there at 10am, by 7pm he was having his appendix out and he was home by 12.30pm the next day, having caught the bus home!

He had covid at the beginning of February and the surgeon said it had caused him to have appendicitis.

I think it must be regional I called at 8am and was seen at 8.45am. This was a non emergency appointment for ds.

They only let 4 people join the call queue at ours. So it's redialling & going through the options multiple times until you get into the queue.

Sometimes you get through and are told 'only important appointments today & yours isn't that', yet you can't book in advance.

It's ridiculous.

I can do all of them online and normally submit the evening before and get an appointment the next day.

I resisted the online thing for a while after it was introduced but it's actually great. I can fill in symptoms and they just ring me back and tell me what is wrong with the person I'm ringing on behalf of and make a prescription. Often we get a phone appointment in the morning and then get told to come in for a f2f later in the same day

I've tried 4 times in the last three months to get a GP appt, twice for me, twice for dd.
Out of those 4 I managed to get an e-consult once.
The other three times I had to use private healthcare (which was up to 3 days wait for 2 of those times).
Three of those 4 instances required antibiotics so not spurious.

Never got through successfully on the phone for an appt (on hold for an hour then told all appts gone).
Only once managed to get an e-consult appt (other times either all appts gone within 30 mins of opening or not available for under 16s).
Surgery unable to offer a telephone consultation.

This is very, very common at GP surgeries in my area in south London.

111 hold times are well over an hour.
A&E wait times - well you can imagine.

1st line healthcare is now almost non existent for many.

It's not just the ringing 37 times. It's being in a huge non moving queue and then getting the message try again tomorrow.
Its hugely frustrating and stressful if you're I'll to have to attempt to get through.
I am so pleased I can make appointments through the app now.
A four week wait is rubbish though when you're only issued a month's worth of medicine and need to be reviewed. It's ok if the GP realises and books you in at your original appointment.

This is the thing. We do "squeeze you in" so the appointment wasn't available...the duty doctor triages and brings you down if they feel it's necessary but the reception don't have these appointments on their screens, we add them as we need them. Sometimes I need to see 2 or 3 extras. Some days it's up to a dozen or more and that's on top of a full surgery. It's hellish out there. I'm actually just going to type my resignation letter for 6 months time as I'm off.

To answer your question about how I get one, I either just use the app (where I then get a message saying the relevant healthcare professional in the surgery will call, which may lead to an appointment being needed and made or may be able to do a phone consult) or I call the surgery, sometimes have to wait five mins or so, speak to receptionist and they sort me out with an appointment. This is in a busy inner London practice.

But I don’t know how helpful that is to you if your surgery is not that efficient. Except to know that it clearly is possible.

We can request appointments online 8am-6pm it's quicker than calling them the receptionist will then phone me to give me an appointment.
We can request appointments by going into the doctors or calling them.
Can't always get same day appointments but generally seen within 48 hours of it's not urgent.