First available GP appointment?

[mumda]

29th June.
I suppose I should be grateful it's 2023 and not 2024.
Booked via the app thank goodness rather than three hours of phone misery.

Wow that’s ridiculous

That is shocking.

Wow that's crazy, I saw my GP twice last week as an emergency appointment, both within a few hours.

Most surgeries have same day appointments OR looking in advance ones. Have you checked your practice's arrangements? We have to call or message after 8:00 and we're allocated phone or face to face appointments same day. But if you book an appointment in advance, it's weeks away.

If it's a while since you've seen your doctor, check. I'd say it's extremely likely that you can get a same day appointment. You just can't book it.

I hear you. I rang up wanting to see a GP, or even an asthma nurse, as I was having trouble breathing and my inhaler wasn't really helping anymore. Six days wait and even then it was a phone appointment 😮

I’m not surprised. We don’t have online app anymore, the new system is : you fill online form, then it’s triaged for urgent and non urgent. The wait for non urgent issue is 3-4 weeks and it could be just a phone call.
I also booked my dental check up today: the first available appointment was mid October.

Yep. I rang for an appoint,ent today and got the same date as you - 29th June.

According to our online booker , there are none available at my GPs at all I can try the fastest finger on the trigger to get an emergency appt if I dial in at 0800 tomorrow but they insist they are for emergencies only and usually can't get through in time. Still waiting to see my diabetes and asthma nurse ... I've been waiting 12 months so far. I have asked several rimes and have just given up now. Mind you I have alsi been waiting 12 months for my urgent appt with my cardiologist

It's non urgent medicine review.
I was told off on a phone appointment that I should have made a physical appointment. He did agree to putting my HRT on a repeat though - which perhaps the original doctor should have done - assuming no terrible problems, a 3 month repeat would have done the trick.

As long as my repeat works to fill in the gap it's non urgent anyway!

As of today (May 25th) the next available appointment is 11th July.

It's a sad state of affairs when I would be happy to be able to book an appointment for the end of June.

We have a batshit fight to get through at 8am daily system where you get a call back from a doctor who then decides if you are worthy of face to face.

For those of us who cannot communicate well a face to face is vital. Apparently it's not a reasonable adjustment and tough shit for anyone who needs it.

I just don't bother. (Before anyone says it must not be important if i don't bother I have had a problem escalating for over 3 years now because I can't get a face to face)

Our surgery is the pits.

Let's face it, the whole system is failing, just in different ways

When we had to ring up for an appointment it made me rather down. I think it took me three days once to get an appointment. The 'please ring back after lunch', and then 'please ring back tomorrow' is really stressful when you're not well.
Thank goodness for the NHS app to be honest as I'd just not go if I had to ring up, @highlandspooce so I know what you mean.

Wow that's awful. I think it's a bit of a postcode lottery. I live in SW London and I called the doctors at midday yesterday. Had an in person appointment for 4:00 that day. I also called about my son on Monday and the doctor sent me a message within the hour.

The problem is, nothing you need to see a GP for can wait. Be it, you’ve got symptoms of diabetes, chronic back pain, you think you might have ADHD, you’re feeling low, you’ve got an infected toenail, you’re wondering about a new mole. Literally none of that can just wait a month. You wouldn’t be calling if you didn’t need to see a doctor. I was extremely poorly with what I now think to be COVID after Christmas, coughing, high BP and heart rate over 120. GP out of hours unavailable so instructed to ring 111. 111 took 1hr to get through, they said a nurse would call me back in 5hrs. Callback cancelled 10 minutes later. There was honestly no medical help available just short of presenting at A&E (felt silly to do that) and ringing 999 which again would’ve been stupid because it didn’t need to waste an ambulance’s time. I had to hope I was okay and I was, but help shouldn’t just be unavailable like that

If it's for a routine appointment I don't actually think that's too bad! Obviously not acceptable for an emergency appointment, infection etc, but those are same day appointments in my surgery. I can wait a couple of months for an appointment with my hairdresser, so 1 month for a GP seems ok to me!

I'm thankful my GP seems to have cracked it with the online triage because everything is always sorted out same day but I called my dentist this week the day after getting my reminder text. I am on the list and never skipped an appointment and the first check up available is end of September.

Blimey! I've been having breathing problems, then my feet got very swollen, I called my doctors and was initially told there were no appointments available. Told receptionist what I needed to talk with dr about. Was told as it was a breathing issue they could get me on the emergency call back list. 15mins later I had a phone call, where I was prescribed water tablets and booked in for an appointment a couple days afterwards. Now waiting for blood tests and have an inhaler.

Surprised that your Dr's haven't called you in to see them in person considering your breathing issues.

They can’t provide a champagne service on a smartprice lemonade budget. Complain to your MP!!

I am a gp receptionist
We have urgent on the day no matter what time you call up, if you need to be spoken to that day you will be.
We also have routine ie someone has a red patch on their leg unsure what it is, been there for 7 months
They can wait an extra 4/5 weeks to discuss with gp.
I think it works well. I hate the way my own doctors works! If you miss the 8am urgent appts there's none left!
They all seem to go within half hour too!
Doesn't work at all and many times I've had to call 111 and they've tasked the gp to call me within the hour: (usually for the kids)

@snowbellsxox I'm a GP receptionist too , I love it ! We have a book and wait system which works quite well but a routine appointment is 21/6 but everyone I spoke to today was fine with that !

@AlwaysAuntie I was very surprised too considering I have COPD and Lupus. I'm now on my third different inhaler without seeing a soul, its just phone consults. Well, not even a consult its just "try this one". Not spoken to a GP yet, its been Nurse Practitioner, Asthma Nurse and back to Nurse Practitioner. I do rate Nurse Practitioners highly but I would have expected a GP callback by the third time😮 Fingers crossed this inhaler works 🍀

@Pixiedust1234 that's horrendous!! My dad had COPD and his inhalers were a lifeline. I really am sorry you're not getting the kind of treatment you need. I do agree Nurse Practitioners are pretty awesome, but yeh seeing a Dr in your circumstances should be higher on their priority list.

Is your COPD monitored by a consultant at your local hospital? Or your lupus? (Sorry I don't know much about lupus, except it's an awful disease that's hard to treat). I ask because maybe if you contact the consultant and discuss the issue with them they might give you an appointment for them to look further into your issue with the inhaler.

In our GPs you have to be well enough to queue from 7.30am to wait for the doors to open at 8.30 to try to grab an appt. If you call you can be caller number 81 in the queue. So you know there is no point hanging on. If by some weird luck you are say caller number 23 and you wait and wait...and then get cut off after around 75mins of hanging on. Our GP also used to charge premium rate for all the time you spent hanging on the line.
If you have managed to crawl to the surgery, you cannot get an appt for less than 6 weeks time.
My friend has finished his fourth round of antibiotics for a water infection, all without once speaking to a GP, just messages through the receptionist. No water sample required and still the problem remains. So now he waits the 6 weeks for an appointment. We all know that he will end up in A&E before that. Where the current queues are over 24 hours. They put 10+ hour wait on notice board but its nowhere near that.
I'm sure GPs will say they are working very hard but most of them only work 3 days a week.
It's a mess.

My GPs do work very hard - 2 have left suddenly, presumably burnt out, so we have 4 regular GPs, two locums. Routine appointments are 4-5 weeks away usually but there are urgent same day appointments available.

I had excruciating pain down one side of my face on Tuesday, phoned the GP at 7.58am on Wednesday to try for an appointment. I had to redial 52 times but got through about 8.20 and got a FtF appointment for 10am. Turns out it’s sinusitis - I’ve never had pain like it!

Primary care is overwhelmed, I don’t blame the staff, it’s not their fault. Some practices do seem to have better access than others though.

Ours have recently improved and now book a week ahead or emergency on the day -.so call at 8,30 for emergency on the day and call at 5pm when the appointments a week today open for routine appointments.

Specialists like muscular skeletal and physio and stuff like phlebotomy and smears run their own diaries outside of thay system