Dr's phone calls when you work

[Hateam]

To get an appointment with my GP I have to log onto a website at 8am and hope to get a phone call sometime that day.

What do people who have jobs where they are not allowed to take personal phone calls do?

I'm a teacher, my neighbour is a bus driver.

AIBU to suggest this system doesn't work for many working people?

I'm lucky our practise treat phone appointments like normal appointments. They give you an actual time the doctor will call & although they do warn you the doctor might be running late they never are. They call within 5/10 mins either side of your allocated time. I dont know why that's not the default system for phone calls.

Tell me you don't work as a teacher without telling me.

Often sencos have a reduced timetable so are more available. Doctors won't wait the 15 mins it takes to get me to the phone.

That would be found to be completely unacceptable in my school. That would be for something like your partner being rushed to hospital or your house on fire. And any way, I'd not be able to leave the class to take the call regardless, as noone could cover me at short notice. It's not appropriate to have that call in the classroom with children present.

My GP just gives you a morning or afternoon window and you can be called anytime in that four hours.

I work in a public facing roll with no privacy. If I have no customers talking to me, I'm able to take the call but sometimes my colleagues can hear all my health business.

If I was given say a 30 min window for the call, my boss would be happy for me to organise my dinner then and sit in the car to take the call.

Last time I complained, I was told "GP's are very busy people". So am I, trying to juggle work, family and all the rest of it.

obviously i am not a teacher, is this thread for teachers only, @MultiplaLight
many many people work, not all of us are teachers

No but your comment was just about teachers 🙄.

YANBU. It's def not set up for anyone who works.

the op is a teacher

Who would teach my class?

In s big school it could be a 5 min walk to find the teacher then a 5 min walk for the teacher to get to the office. Would a GP wait for 10 mins?

@HelenWheels can I ask what job you do and what hours you work? It is relevant to the discussion.

Really not that easy for many.

@HelenWheels Are you lacking in comprehension?

You made a comment about teachers. I commented back that it wouldn't work, then you asked if the thread was only for teachers. Clearly it isn't.

Why do so many on this thread assume that everyone's GP practice works in the same way as theirs? There is no facility to do what you suggest, on my surgery's triage form

Last time I did an econsult I got a text saying I was probably fine and if symptoms hadn’t resolved in six months to call again.

so at least I didn’t have to be available for a phone call 🤦‍♀️

I did once get a phone call from an econsult and I walked out of a lesson to take the call. I got away with it because it was a sixth form lesson and they are very well behaved. Since the alternative is taking a full day off school I refuse to feel guilty. Many schools however wouldn’t allow the teacher to have their phone in the room, I’m lucky that mine does.

The system does not work for retired people either. Most of us fill our time with activities and volunteering which means we cannot necessarily take calls at random times.
And as for telephone frailty assessments........why is the NHS wasting money on them? I refused mine on the grounds that they would learn more if they actually saw the patient.

I'm a GP who does phone triage. Teachers etc leave their break and lunch time details and we call then

I don’t think you can compare taking part in activities as an actual job!

I used to work in a huge open plan office and at certain times of the day, all the meeting rooms would be full of people making private calls.

Extremely few blue collar jobs work like that. They’d have to take the whole day off just to make the telephone call, with no guarantee of getting through. Loose a days pay and not get anywhere. It’s a disgrace.

The best you can get from our surgery is the date of your phone appointment, never a small range, and definitely not a specific time slot. So you have to be ready at any time from 8am to 6.30pm to take a call. It’s very difficult to manage.

Mine have e consult which I love, so I fill it in & generally don’t need to be spoken to. But if I do, I get a text message with an appointment time.

I find this system doesn’t work for me either. I work in a prison and am regularly nowhere near a phone. The last time I requested and it was agreed that my callback would be after 5:30 but the call never came. The next day I got a text asking me to rate my experience of my non-existent appointment 🙄 So frustrating.

Who has told you that you are not allowed time off for non-urgent medical appointments? Of course you are. They may not like it, they may need to get cover, but if you need a routine appointment, you need it.

Going to the dentist or optician is different as presumably you can schedule those for the holidays, but GP and hospital appointments are when you are allocated - you don't get a choice about it.

Our e consult is only available in the morning regardless. And seems to close early if it reaches some type of capacity. The impression I get is that the practice can’t cope with being more contactable, and they prefer to make contact very difficult, rather than have a backlog of requests to resolve.

Ours used to be really bad... Call in at 8, hold on for an age to get a promise of a call back. Even to make routine appointments. I didn't bother going for over 8 years as I was getting mammograms and smears through work.

When I finally went in for an appointment I was told off for not booking routine appointments at least once a year... "Just to check up on you". After I finished laughing we had a constructive discussion as to why.

They now offer out of hours appointments / phone backs for people who are also working. They are also able to make appointments over the phone after the 8 am rush. I suspect I wasn't the only person who told them that their system was not working.