Waiting from 8 - 6 for a GP to ring

[Coughmedicinedoesntwork]

Had to book a day off to have my phone with me 24/7 for a GP call. I filled out an econsult 2 weeks ago, no chance of a face to face appointment. No chance of booking a routine appointment in advance.

Rang GP surgery to see if they could give me any idea whether the GP would ring in the morning or afternoon. They said no idea when GP would call. How is this even possible? Surely there is a list of patients to be called so if I’m at the end of the list for eg they know it will be an afternoon call.

I think it’s shocking how we are now all supposed to accept this as normal and acceptable. Access to basic healthcare shouldn’t be this hard.

But until either the tories persuade everyone to pay ten times more ( based on US) for private healthcare or we decide to pay a little more in tax for the nhs , and probably also reconsider how we are doing brexit , that's how it's going to be

It is honestly terrifying how difficult getting a GP appointment. I have been trying for a week to get my 3 year old an appointment. They won't make appointments over the phone, you have to use askmygp which is only open until it reaches capacity which is around 5 minutes every day at variable points in the day. I don't know what the answer is unless you can afford private.

I need my GP to approve one of medications as it is restricted and the hoops I have to jump through each month for my extremely expensive drugs is ridiculous. I see a psychiatrist privately who "prefers to do it this way"

Complain to the practice manager. Encourage anyone else who uses the medical centre to complain to the practice manager.

There's absolutely no reason beyond bloody mindedness for them not to be able to confirm where you are approximately on the list and the earliest time you could expect to be called.

Our medical centre has recently changed because of the number of complaints. They will now give approximate 3 hour windows during which you should receive your call. It'll never be earlier than the window but may be later than it. Still not perfect, but much better than hanging around all day for a call that couldn't possibly have been scheduled for earlier than 4pm in the doctor's actual list.

that is so unacceptable for most people. I am retired so not a problem for me, just take my mobile everywhere with me - mind you my husband was waiting for a call from his GP, went to the loo left his phone on the worktop, GP rang, he missed it and that was that no follow up call, this was also a 'cancer care' call that THEY had offered to him. He called back to say he had missed the call, they never rang again.

how about the folk that work where the only access to have their phone is on a break... ridiculous turn of events we are having to accept.

I genuinely don’t understand why if it’s a pre booked clinic they can’t give you and appointment time for a phone call but with the stipulation it could be any time afterwards if running late etc. I hate having to sit there ready with my phone and notes for like 4 hours worried I will miss time a toilet trip and wouldn’t be possible in work.

I work in a large GP surgery.

For booked telephone appointments (booked in the normal way, which for us means over the phone at 8am that day), you are on a physical list and we can guess approximately when you might be called.

For responses to econsults it's different. These are handled by the "Admin GP" for that day. This GP is carrying out many admin based tasks including but not limited to, reviewing lab results, signing prescriptions, dealing with queries from hospitals etc as they arise, reviewing urgent scan/xray results/clinical letters etc. Some Dr's will start with the lab results, then do phone calls, then prescriptions etc. Others will do it in a totally different order. Often this depends on what appears the most urgent on the day.

I appreciate this is just one surgery I am talking about, but if you were registered with us, this is why we genuinely couldn't tell you what time to expect a call to follow up an econsult.

I had to take a day off work as I actually work in an NHS hospital but it has no phone signal! The receptionist I spoke to was very sympathetic but just kept repeating that they have no idea when patients will be called.

I wonder if there is one list of patients and the GP or GPs just randomly choose patients from the list throughout the day and call. This is what the doctors in the service I work in did during Covid. After Covid they went back to booked appointments.

I expect they will call at 5.55. I’ve had to call in favours as I can’t risk picking my children up from school in case I miss the call whilst driving etc

Twice now I've been glued to my phone all day and the GP hasn't called at all. Like you, I have to take a day's leave from work for this. I'm hearing impaired so phone calls are extremely stressful and I'm terrified of not hearing it ring. Last time this happened I went to the surgery, told the receptionist the gp hadn't called, she just grinned and said I'd have to phone the next morning at 8am when booking opened to start the whole lottery again. I asked if she could make an appointment for me, given that the GP hadn't called and I was right there in the surgery, and she said no.
It's a terrible system for people who work and people who have difficulty using the phone.

Isn't that just a really badly organised system with no care for patients? The GP needs to call them at a fixed window and fit everything else round that. It's insane that no-one is considering the patients in this- expecting them a day off work to wait for a call is beyond absurd.

So, the issue is that (again only speaking about one specific surgery), the phone calls are usually the least urgent tasks to be completed. But not always. For example, a Dr wouldn't want to be working through a list of non urgent calls while leaving urgent lab results for later....

The logical answer would be to have the econsult calls dealt with by a different Dr who isn't also handling urgent things at the same time & then an appointment time could roughly be given. However, taking another GP away from standard surgery to do this means fewer same day appointments available for those needing them.

Don't be under the illusion that anybody working in a GP surgery actually thinks the current systems are fantastically user friendly. It's actually just a constant juggling game trying to get the most done in a day.

This. The fault lies with the practice manager and how they chose to run the surgery. I can book online appointments for call backs and the surgery will give you an approximate time slot. Can do anything you need to online with them, sick notes, appointments, medication reviews etc. Complain to your surgery.

If you are hearing impaired & find phone calls difficult, your surgery should be offering you a booked F2F appt.

Liklihood is they'll have a list of x patients booked for face to face as well as y patients for call backs, they're all allocated time slots of the timetable. Ideally you don't want patients sat in the waiting room too long so you try and hit those on the scheduled appointments, sometimes appointments run late due to complexity or more than one issue being discussed, meaning your clinic runs late. You try and gain back time when people come in with stuff that doesn't really need to be seen - sore throat or cough for 3 days for example, these don't really need an assessment so it's just a quick chat, give them so worsening advice and done in 3-4 minutes. But now the nurses and acps are scooping up all the simple patients and the GPs are left with lists of complexity. So to try and claw back time you ignore the phone call slots and either grab them before lunch, or at the end of the day. This is the receptionists cant tell you when they'll call as they're well aware the GP will likely call opportunistically.

If you had a face to face appointment, it would be at a specific time, give or take. Why is it different for phone appointments?

YANBU. It's fine for me, I can be flexible at work and answer the phone whenever, but my mum is a teacher, she can't just walk out of the classroom. So unless she's ill enough to require a sick day, she can't speak to a dr outside of school holidays. She's tried ringing and saying "can you put me at the bottom of the list" to try and make sure the call comes after school hours but they say no.

I'm never sure why people report they're only offered calls and refused f2f, at the clinic I work at there's a choice as they're both allocated the same time slot so if I can see 20 patients in a day that would be the limit depending on shift length, that could be 20 f2f or 20 call, normally a mixture but it's essentially down to patient preference.

I find mostly this works, a few times the calls just needed to be f2f and other times f2f could have been calls. As i see the acute clinic though I think in most cases they shouldn't allow patients to book as calls, it should be f2f only - it's just silly when you see a call back for "worried about 2yr son, he doesn't look right and has a fever" - well he's probably fine but really are you expecting a meaningful assessment on the phone why on Earth did you turn down a f2f?!?!

My surgery is the same apart from they don’t even do e-consult. It’s a mad scramble at 8am when the phone lines open until 8.05am when they close. After that the phone isn’t answered. If you are one of the chosen few then a GP will call you at an undetermined time between 8.30am and 6pm.

The chances of me being able to get through to the surgery on a day when I’m able to sit by my phone for nine and a half hours with no interruptions is absolutely zilch.

We have considered moving some distance away but what puts me off is risking going from one of the better GP surgeries to a poorer one. The system is not what it was but I feel well looked after and the receptionists/admin staff are friendly, professional and helpful. The nurses and doctors are too.
I think the OP is BR and to not have any idea of what time a GP might call is down to poor practice management.

The post by sleepyrich just above yours explains the reality of this perfectly.

It's so frustrating. I missed a call recently as I was in work and can't have my phone on me. I only work 2 hrs a day so it takes the pee to take time off for a phone call that may or may not even come during that time.

My GP gives you a 2 hour time slot (still not great but do-able) and if you ask really nicely will tell you where you are on the list. I tend to only do this if I have to be somewhere before/shortly after the end of the slot (2-4pm is particularly annoying if you have primary aged children). They also ring the next patient and then give you one call back if you miss the call.

Well people probably report it in that way because it is their experience. Sadly some GP practices appear not to be able to organise a piss up in a brewery when it comes to appointments.

That is not to say all are like that, the one my friend goes to is a model of efficiency, it's just a shame that they all operate differently

We last waited for a gp call for ds all day, finally rang at 8.45 when DS was already asleep. The call lasted 1 minute 16 seconds. They switch the phone lines off once appointments are gone, so no point ringing back either.
We went private the next day. State of the NHS is appalling.

Yes, my husband had to answer a call about his vasectomy while on the train!! As they wouldn't give a time slot and he had to travel in for work so had to just hope it wouldn't be then, but sods law it was. Asking for date of birth confirmation etc while sat in a crowdedcarriage.

I had to go out to get a supply of pain meds before and had to cross my fingers they wouldn't call while i was in the queue at the shop to discuss my symptoms.

Another time I thought they'd forgotten to call as it was 7pm. Nope, called at 7.30pm and left a voicemail to call back to discuss. But left no number to call back and main GP number was obviously closed.