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.

I had a call booked with my GP as I needed a referral to the fracture clinic and as I'd gone to an A&E out of my PCT area I needed a referral from either a local A&E or my GP.

As it was the weekend I'd called 111 to see if they could help (as I desperately needed more painkillers and I couldn't face a second wait in A&E) and they booked a telephone appointment with my GP for the next morning.

Now, I know my GP has my mobile number as they send me texts. I also called 111 from my mobile and left them my mobile number to call.

So, why the bloody hell did they call my landline number, when they know I've got a fractured bone and was struggling to get up out of a chair, let alone walk down the stairs to get to the phone!

Thank goodness DH was home at the time and managed to catch it as they called at 7.45am and he leaves the house at 8am, as otherwise I would have missed the call too.

Well, just had my telephone call. Waited 2 weeks for it and my call log shows it lasted 1 minute and 10 seconds. GP said I need a F2F appointment and someone will ring me to arrange, no date specified as to when this will be 🤦🏻‍♀️

For booked telephone appointments our GP practice give a time slot, for triage calls ot is a bit more fluid as higher priority calls may come in. The econsult system works well too - you can put times you are available /unavailable for a call back.

Oh, believe me it's passed on. The Dr will use this to triage the order they do their calls in.

However, they also need to start by getting the history from the beginning, usually asking questions as they go. Also, patients are very good at saying one thing to the Receptionist and something entirely different to the Dr.