How do you get a doctors appointment if you are not available between 8.30 and 8.35am

[shaniahoo]

I had to slightly change my work hours today and work from home just so that I could fill out an e-consult form to get a doctor's appointment because in my experience the form closes by 8.35. I was refreshing the page every 5 seconds from 8.29 onwards and on one refresh it changed from "you can submit a new request from 8.30 today" to "you can submit a new request from 8.30 on Monday". I don't know whether it filled up in 5 seconds or whether they just didn't open it today for some reason. I rang instead and am number 23 in the queue. Isn't this ridiculous?? I know from previous times that they WILL NOT give you a routine appointment for in a few days time, say. They will give you an appointment today if you ask at 8.30 exactly otherwise you have to call tomorrow. But I thought that was the point in the e-consult form, so you can submit a request whenever and they can work through them? What the hell is the point in it if the online form also has a strict 8.30-8.35(or earlier) time window? And what do people do to get doctors appointments if they are working at 8.30am in the kind of job where you can't fanny about with your phone, or on the school run or something routinely at that time?

The NHS is broken. I haven't seen my GP since before the Pandemic.

in many surgeries you can't. and the people end up in a&e. Complete shit show..

Our e consult is open until 4pm & someone will call you "within 2 days" or you are sent a text with an appointment . Usually they call within a couple of hours.
We used to have your system (without the e consult, just calling). It's absolute crap & doesn't work.

YANBU - I just rang GP to make an initial appointment to discuss HRT, having initially been told to use app, but the app said no appointments, I got through and they said 'Oh, there's no HRT appointments' and I have to keep ringing for one of those when they open up new ones, and there's no online booking. Which seems dumb as any woman wanting HRT is going to be young enough to be totally au fait with the internet, but they're insisting we take up phone time for what is essentially a non-urgent problem, when we could all book online if they set that up.

Get someone to call on your behalf? (I know it's 💩).

I haven't seen my GP in years.

Local FB groups always have posts about long queues, no one answering the phone and random closures for staff training. I have no idea how anyone manages to book an appointment.

You don't.

Call at 7.59 and the surgery isn't open.
Call at 8.00 and you're 6th in the queue (?)
Last time I called at 8.00 exactly, was on hold for 45 minutes and obviously all the appointments had gone by then.

We rarely call any more as by the time you've actually got an appointment, you've been better for 3 weeks.

Our GP's e-consult is open until 11.30. Your GP is not running the service effectively or efficiently. We get triaged and either receive a phone call later in the day, get issued meds, or get sent a link for a future appointment.

Do they do econsult.net/nhs-patients/

?

We can just go online and book 24/7. You can normally get an appointment within 48 hours or you can ring during opening hours if it's urgent and someone will call you back.

24 / 7 🫨

That's amazing.

Where I live getting an appointment within 48 hours is rarer than rocking horse poo and a call back isn't an option. If you miss the tiny window in the morning, you're screwed.

Who are all the people booking up the Gp's time? I rarely go to surgery but when I do its a mixture of older people and Mum's with kids. I understand that once you know how to get an appointment you will use that method again and again.

Our elderly neighbour will ask someone to take her to the surgery. She wont use the online system. She will present at the desk and if they cannot see her will start crying. It works for her. She is old and on her own.

We need a grown up conversation about co payment. Because its 'free' its abused. Yes, of course we pay taxes but quite honestly some people dont pay much in. We are also patting ourselves on the back that we are keeping people alive for longer and longer. 90 is no longer an unusual age to live to. We need to look at quality of life as often women are propping up their very elderly parents to live the life THEY want at a cost to the daughters heath and well being. My Father lived in squalor. Refused carers for years. They couldnt get in the house anyway as it was so cluttered and dangerous. Eventually after many many years he went into a care home but not before it nearly broke the family (and cost the NHS a fortune)

My GP wants to see me, rather than the other way round but they still can't facilitate making an appointment.

Agreed. We can only book blood tests at 8am, for three weeks in advance and by 8.30am they are all gone. Yes you can either call or book online but what use is that if you start work early/are driving to work at that time.

Our e-consults are as you thought they would work, you fill out the details and attach any relevant pictures. Once submitted it gives a date and time they expect to have responded by. So i put a consult in on monday evening, was told it should be responded to by 6pm wednesday. Got a call 10am Wednesday and told the dr would like a face to face, given an appointment for 11.30am today. Works well if its nothing you cant wait a couple of days for a response.

For £250 a year you can get unlimited online GP appointments. However the downside is this is private, so it can be difficult to then get back into NHS for prescriptions and referrals etc.

If the two systems worked better together then I think a lot of people for £20 a month might be happy to sign up for an online GP and free up the NHS GPs.

In the 90s my GP used to be no appointments, you walked in before lunch time and they would triage you for a same day appointment. It meant sometimes waiting a few hours in the waiting room, but it worked really well. I assume there are too many patients per practice for this to work now.

It might be worth raising with your local MP @shaniahoo - with it being a GE year they might be a bit more inclined to help as a local vote winner? I have no evidence of this other than our normally totally shite local tory MP is suddenly running local surgeries and at least making some calls on behalf of those raising issues... no idea how much use it is!

Same here, we just don't really have access to a GP service anymore. It's scary.

Daisy. Interesting. Can the private GP refer for NHS treatment?

I don't have a problem getting appointments at my GP. EConsult is available during opening hours and I usually get a call same day and offered an appointment. Yesterday I got a call to offer me an appointment to go through some blood test results and it isn't until beginning of June but I already know they're ok as I'd seen the nurse this week and she told me so I'm not in a hurry

We can't. Our surgery doesn't even do e consult. You have a few minutes at 8 o clock to get in the queue on the phone and then the appointments are gone.
Anyone who has to be at work, or dealing with young children/doing the school run by themselves probably wouldn't just wouldn't be able to. If you can't answer your phone at work (or if you're a student at school), getting an appointment is pointless because you can't take the call.

No idea. Neither of us have seen a gp since well before the pandemic. Dh is now rapidly losing weight and has a possible hernia developing. Cannot get the codes need to access the apps required to even begin to fill in the online e consult forms - and one of the apps won’t even let us make an account as the facial recognition part won’t work. . I guess it’s private GP and fingers crossed we can find the money from pension savings. (Who wants to retire anyway :( )

It's crazy. They're building more and more houses but no new GP surgeries or schools for that matter.

i’d call later in the day when they’re less busy and ask what they suggest

our GP Tbf had a similar system. But have now gone back to ring fencing a % of appointments for non urgent but in the next two weeks. So much more sensible.
even if I can call at 8.30 chances are I can’t come along at the time they give me, unless I can plan in advance

We only have the call at the 8am system here. There is no call queue, we just have to hit redial until we get through. I was once told at about 8.20 that I should have phoned at 8 am, and I might have got an appointment. I nearly lost it, but thought that might guarantee never getting an appointment again. The receptionist had to be on the wind up, or new, to have said that!

My advice is to learn how the system works and be prepared to advocate hard for yourself. Not easy when you're in need of medical attention, I know!
First try the standard method for your area. Don't ask for a doctor's appointment though as that limits options. They may have a nurse practitioner that can see you. If you have no joy, ask their advice on where to seek urgent help as you can't wait to try to get an appointment another day. For example, I once was advised to see an optician for potential damage to my son's eye, it hadn't even occurred to me to go to one, but they had urgent appointments available for such things. If they continue to fob you off call 111 or the equivalent in your area for advice. They may be able to arrange an appointment for you, especially if you call them out of hours.
Good luck!