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?

My DD shut her foot in the door on Monday night. Toe mangled, toenail off, lots of blood. Tuesday morning I rang my practice at 8.30, waited on hold for 15 minutes. Was offered an appointment with the (very skilled) nurse at 10am, having expected to be told to bugger off to A&E (no minor injuries here). Nurse checked the wound, dressed it and booked an appointment to check and redress the following day. Top class service, but yes you have to be around to ring at 8.30, but imo that’s fine, you rearrange your life to make it happen.

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

If you call after the appointments have gone at our surgery the automated message just says "our appointments have been taken and we have no more availability. Call tomorrow, or speak to 111".

There are an awful lot of people who are not elderly or mothers with children. People of all ages get cancer, live with chronic conditions, have accidents, arthritis, need hrt, have mental health issues or just want to get advice on something before they end up in a&e. These are all legit uses of the nhs. In fact its what its for. The government needs to sort it out.

Same. I can’t get an HRT appointment. We have to call at 2.30pm on Tuesdays to get an appointment for 4 weeks later. I am working but on the occasions I have managed to call I have been in a queue for up to an hour to be told no appointments left. There is no e-option.

It is absolutely ridiculous.

Sounds like a postcode lottery and we’re lucky. Mondays are hard but any other day I can call at any time and get an appointment for that day. We’re in the middle of a city though so maybe more GPs around?

I can call at any time and get an appointment for that day.

That's amazing. You're incredibly lucky. It's been at least a decade since that's been possible in my area.

Welcome to Tory Britain. Nothing works.

It doesn't actually matter when you call because the answerphone says they are currently not taking calls and to call 999 in an emergency. HTH.

Oh and if you try to use the app you get an "Assistant" appointment for mid June which apparently will be of no use because they are not a doctor. The doctors surgery will email to let you know that, but cannot create an appointment for you.

It's frustrating but often the frustration is misplaced. It is very likely that they can't "just" open up the appointment. They will be tied to a software which is managed externally. I have the same issue at work. It took IT department 7 months to enable electronic note templates for our service which was essentially a blank document with three lines of text prompt. I could have done it in 30 minutes if I had access to the system's back end.

Either get someone else to call for you or have you got a nurse practitioner who can give prescriptions? We've got one at my surgery and she sees a lot of people and stops the GP from being clogged up. I saw her when I had cellulitis in my leg and she gave me antibiotics as I'm allergic to penicillin.

We have the same thing, OP. The eConsult form is available from 8 am, and 'closes' when they have reached capacity. Normally by 8.05 am. Then you have to try again the next day/Monday.

I don't need to see my GP a lot, the last time I did I needed surgery so I'm glad I persisted and got an appointment (it wasn't easy, I'm on the tube/bus at 8 am!).

You call at 8.28, 8.29, pressing redial redial redial and then if you are lucky you become like number 6 in the queue. Gotta be on it though. Mondays are the worst day, never call on a Monday.

We’re very lucky indeed with our GP practice, it works pretty much the same as GP practices used to - you phone up at any time of day and make an appointment, same day or next day if it needs to be urgent or for a few days or weeks ahead. If an advance booking, we can choose which GP we see, for continuity of care. Very helpful receptionists. Choice of telephone or in-person, also e-consult form. Excellent quality of care. I am very grateful but sad that others aren’t having the same experience.

We can send in e consults at any time, that's the whole point surely. In fact sometimes if you send on a Sunday morning you get a reply same day, even had medication sent to boots (alas now closed down so no out of hours meds available for over 15 miles)

Sounds like bad local management.

I will no longer accept a phone app after attending in person & from the waiting room area I was able to hear every second of the doctors’ side of other patients’ phone appointments

maybe they all needed to speak loudly on phone to patients who all had hearing difficulties

but I’m unimpressed at private medical information (along with name ofc used on ph) being broadcast to whoever happens to be in the practise building

hard agree on wtf is going on, phonecalls all day take less time than person sat in front of you so drs should be getting through more patients, not less

yet 200+ calls for an app is still good for my area, 500+ is the norm

I have zero doubt women will be the worst affected, from spending their time making apps for others, to caring until the app or instead of, and coping with the fallout when people get worse because no app was available or not early enough

and all that time likely plowing on herself because she doesn’t have time to self-care

ffs I’ve depressed myself now <heads off to plan minor self-surgery>

Yes this is more like how ours works. E consult thingy is open from 8-4, and you will get a call or whatever within 48 hours, though in my experience if you put it in at 8 you tend to get a call by 9, offering you an appointment or if they have been able to diagnose from the info given, to agree a course of treatment and let you know the prescription is on its way to the pharmacy.

Unfortunately with GPs surgeries each being their own independent business, effectively, you get good ones and bad ones.

Where do you live ? I want to move over there asap.
We used to have this system and I loved it, I actually did a few small steps for looking after myself. We never had appointment in 48 hours, usually much more but you could call for urgent. And I could plan and see the same GP for the same problem. Dream life…
Now we moved to filling form and then waiting for 5-6 weeks for a phone call. Madness.

My surgery very slightly improved recently and actually put in a queuing system for the phones. However they’ve now merged with two other GP practices and it’s one central number which never seems to be picked up.

Should you by some miracle get an appointment, you stand the chance of being sent to one of the other practices, neither of which have parking and are a 90 minute round trip on public transport. So rather than popping out from work for 20 minutes to the surgery opposite my flat, I’m away at least 2 and a half hours as you can’t specify which surgery you prefer to be seen at. Makes absolutely no sense to me.

That's very backward of them!

E-consult is brilliant. I submitted an e-consult about a recurring condition at 7.30am a few weeks ago, and got a reply 50 minutes later saying that a prescription had been sent electronically to my nominated pharmacy. My friend picked up the meds at 9.30 and dropped them straight round. If I'd had to join the queue and hold on to get through, I'd still have been holding on the speak to the receptionist at 9.30, then would have had to wait for a telephone appointment.

If they need to speak to you, you get a triage phone call within a couple of hours, then (if necessary) a telephone or F2F appointment.

My GP uses an online system called Anima, and it seems to work really well. We have a big group practice operating out of 4 different surgeries and covering a town and quite a large rural area, it may not be viable to buy into something like that for smaller practices (ours was 4 practices before they merged).

Use the app. Some appointments are only bookable on the day. Some are available in advance. If your surgery doesn't do online booking, find one that does.

Ours used to be a shit show. You could never get through on the phone and they always had the e-consult turned off. You couldn’t get through for even simple queries. My DD has a repeat prescription and the pharmacy never put the repeat form in the medication bag so we’d have a whole rigmarole every month of asking for a repeat.

Recently, the e-consult has been on during surgery hours and it has been so much easier to get hold of someone. I send an e-consult, then get a message to say they’ll contact me within 2 days, but I usually get a response much quicker than that. Still can’t get through on the phone and it would be nice if they gave you a vague timeframe for telephone appointments (say AM or PM) but it’s a vast improvement.

Two ways, both of which I have used successfully:

Go into the surgery and tell them you've had no luck with the e consult and ask them to complete one for you then and there. You will have to be firm and insist, but they will do this.

Write to the practice manager. Explain the issue and ask that they contact you with an appointment. I've done this a few times now.

Good luck!

That's not that easy if you don't live in a large-ish urban area. We only have one practice, the next nearest is in a town 8 miles away and they won't accept patients from here as it's out of area.

Is the main issue a lack of staff and too many patients? I agree it’s completely ridiculous - so are the 100 appointments (or whatever! I have no idea how many there would be) for the day genuinely filling up by 8.05? Im lucky now I can be flexible with my work etc and can phone at whatever time I want and usually go to any appointment time, but there are a lot of situations that need to see a doctor but it doesn’t necessarily need to be today - but also it shouldn’t be in 3 months time!! You should be able to book routine appointments ahead of time and leave the 8am rush for those that need to be seen asap!

Presumably they can have whatever system they have to make appointments etc, but if they’re just overwhelmed with patients needing appointments then there’s not a huge amount they can do about the logistics of it as it’s never going to work properly and everyone who needs them won’t be able to get through.

My doctors has an open surgery between 8am-10:45am. Pre covid, you went to the surgery and queued outside. On the odd occasion, when it was tipping it down, they allowed us to sit where we were told to as to establish the queue order. I got there at 7:35am and were about 3 others in front. Took my iPod and Kindle Paperwhite to pass the time.

Now the lines open at 8am (think first appt is 8:25) and there's a queue of 35. Only tell you where in the queue you are before 25. The reception team get through calls quickly. Sometimes I had "can you come in the next 5 mins?". As soon as I get off the phone, jump in the car.

Employers need to understand that their staff cannot be choosy when they get hospital or doctors appointments. Sometimes I have to take that one appointment available for one of the eye consultants (one for vision condition and one for skin condition around eyes). Ask when is the next appointment - 3.5 weeks later. Plus consultants at hospitals only do consulting work 1-2 days a week at one hospital and at another hospital once a week and rest of time is surgery.

At least I have two days off during the week and if need to see a GP, I do this on my days off.

You can submit a complaint to the practice manager, they will likely call you back and you can make an appointment then. I’m not recommending that as a routine way to make appointments but it worked for me a couple of weeks ago when I was at my wits end trying to make an appointment for my DD.