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?

My smear is 3 months overdue because I can’t face the hassle of booking it
Same! I bit the bullet. I took time off. Walked over there in boiling heat only to be told the appointment was cancelled because of a computer problem and someone would call me to rearrange. They didn’t and I just can’t face it. I booked the appointment before the summer holidays. Can’t exactly go for a smear with my kids in tow.

I honestly think it's a deliberate policy to protect resources. Ie discourage people from using the service. Obviously some surgeries make it work better than others do.

I completely agree an exception should be made to policy for those whose jobs mean they usually can't answer the phone if it rings. Some surgeries seem to make it work better than others which is interesting.

It might be worth calling/emailing the practice manager to see if you can get something out on your notes that you work shifts/can only take calls outside hours and saying what your job is if needs be

In my practice, you have to call at 8am and wait in the vain hope that someone will answer.
There is no online booking. And you can't go in to book either... even if it's a follow up to one you've just left.
First appointment, should you be lucky enough to get one, is at 9 and the last is at 4.40, neither of which I can make unless it's at least a week away.
And if they offer a phone appointment, it's "between 9 and 4.30". Which doesn't work either.
I'd change practices, if they hadn't all been swallowed up by this lot.

I like the fact that ours now use econsult to submit symptoms and then they'll send you an appointment for either a telephone consultation or face to face appointment because it saves sitting on hold on the phone BUT they rarely ring at anything like the time they give you for phone consultations (it's been as much as 90minutes either way) so it would work fine as I can take calls at work and block time out of my diary, but not half a day!!

The only way to get a GP appointment at our surgery is to call them at 8.30am. They don't even put you on hold or in a queue, you just have to keep ringing and ringing again and again and hope that eventually someone picks up. If you are lucky enough to actually get through and tell the Receptionist your problem, they tell you a GP will call you "at some point today". They won't specify a time or even a window of time. The expectation is that you are glued to your phone and available to take a call anytime until 6pm. If they call and you don't answer, they don't call back.

If you are able to take the call and the GP feels they need to see you face to face you will be expected to drop everything and come into the surgery within the hour.

You used to be able to get same day appointments for urgent issues, and advance bookable appointments for non urgent issues, but they did away with the latter during covid and have no plans to bring them back.

I start work at 8am and am not allowed to have my phone on me at work. It's a ridiculous system and I have no doubt leads to working people neglecting their health and ignoring issues that should be checked out.

How would it work for my job though? If I get told the doctor will ring me tomorrow about a non urgent appointment anytime. But I have 16 patients booked in. And the next appointment they can be moved to is in 3 months. So not only will it fuck up loads of people who have also booked time off to see me, they can't get it rescheduled for months. So even though my work is very nice and understanding, it's just really ridiculous that it needs to happen like this when I'm happy to wait a few weeks and organise in advance. Or even if they could give me a rough time. Like 9-11. That way I could just move patients and work through lunch etc so I'm free at that time. Instead I get told 9-5. Which then means cancelling an entire day's worth of patients for a non urgent problem.

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

This is what absolutely enrages me. The constant “talk to your GP”. How am I supposed to talk to my GP when it’s a full time job actually getting hold of my GP.

And then tell us off when we can’t manage the nightmarish bureaucracy so we let things slide. This is why preventative medicine is so poor in the UK. Non urgent appointments are so hard to schedule that people don’t go in until they are sick enough to take the day off.

I've tried that. It was ignored. You just get a text saying someone will call you on Thursday. No time given.

I have an office job and am relatively senior so can organise my own time so I could (and have) sat with earbuds in for my phone working whilst waiting to connect. I think the lack of consideration some practices have for the vast array of jobs who can't do that is very poor.

The irony is that doctors, nurses and receptionists are one of the groups who couldn't do that because of work...

No! They have their own jobs to do, and don't need to be dashing round the site, interrupting me teaching y11, so that I can have a chat with my gp about my breast lump.

I got ticked off once for missing a call back from the doctor. I was told they'd phone me between 10-12 which I'd said was fine because I had no meetings and would just be working at my desk, we're allowed to answer urgent calls so not a problem. Didn't ring until almost 2pm when I was in a meeting.

I asked receptionist later if she would be able to hang around all day waiting for a call. Some surgeries seem baffled that people can need to access medical services whilst also being in work.

I think a big part of the problem is GP practices are small businesses which are given a lot of autonomy on how they run and there is no impetus to improve these things. Probably it needs NHS to have criteria that they all have to do to enable it to be more accessible for more people. Another possibility i dont know if they could do already but charge for these things. Ie charge if you want specific times etc. I dont think it’s fair but it would be a start. Dentists do this, for example they offer NHS services but if you want appointment in peak time thats only private patients.

My GP surgery sometimes (it seems very random) has the option to request a call back. You don't lose your place in the queue, but of course you don't know how long it's going to take.
Recently l called to make an appointment and got the recorded message 'You are 64th in the queue.' How on earth is that meant to work if you're at, or going to work? You can't possibly have any idea how long it's going to take.
I can't take calls at work, l work on a supermarket checkout. Even on a day off you can't guarantee they'll get back to you that day.
There is the option to book an appointment online, but it's very rare that there are any for a GP. Even the nurse appointment system vague unless you're specifically booking for blood pressure/blood tests.
I've had a text about an asthma review. The link on the text they sent me doesn't work and if l book online l don't know if the person l'm booking with actually does asthma reviews!
The only way to actually speak to someone is to go to the surgery. I work 12 miles away from where l live, so unless it's a day off, that isn't an option.
I genuinely feel sorry for the receptionists, they must get so much stick. One of my friends did that job recently, and she didn't stay long, she said it was horrendously stressful.

Despite the narrative that this only affects 'working people', others are affected too. Many people who are not employed because of caring responsibilities, and also often cannot be available at a random, unspecified time.

I’m a TA - asked for the call after 3.30 and explained but got a missed call at 10.30 when I’m on break duty so no hope of answering it . It’s so tricky - can hardly abandon my intervention group to take a call about my menopause symptoms 😬

Op I think that your only option is e consult and make whoever reads the message aware of your situation, not able to take calls. I can only comment on e consult with our practice and it has been a mixed bag of replies. I think that it depends on who picks up the message sometimes I do not think it a Dr and it is delegated to a supervisor with not a great deal of medical training, sympathy or understanding.

The only sympathy that I have with the call at, 8am and hang on for 45mins, sometimes, is that the system has been abused over the years with numpties not turning up and not cancelling. A quite appalling waste of time and money.

A person reported on line that another surgery close to our own apparently had the recorded message that 45 people were in the queue announced at shortly after 8am!

Mines the same. I had weeks of trying to get a call, I told them when I was available and outside those times I was in a black hole for phone service. Many many times I got a message when I left the black hole saying dr tried to call.
And then I'm going through the whole process again the next day. Wasted loads of time on it.

Why cant they go back to a drop in at certain times. I used to be able to drop in and wait. I think it was 7 til 9.30. And if you got there at 6.45 you were one of the first to be seen, but if you had the day off you could get there at 9.25 and also be seen so long as you waited.
This freed up the rest of the day for planned appointments and phone calls and home visits. I bet they got through way more people in the drop in, leaving appointments for those that require them.

How would that work?
Ok, we will just not bother running that bus then.
Luckily I am SE so very flexible but often when dealing with my GP I do wonder how people who aren't manage.
DH sometimes works on secure sites with no phone and has had to use a Private GP before so he can book a specific appointment.

I don't own a mobile phone so I have to wait within earshot of my home phone.

It doesn’t work for SAHMs either. Trying to do the school run while on hold for the doctor’s receptionist is horrible.
8:30am and 2pm- couldn’t be timed worse 🤦‍♀️

The way some surgeries work is insane to me. Ours are fantastic in comparison.

You can ring any time and make an appointment. If it's an emergency you'll get offered same day.

You can also book online and choose the doctor or nurse you want to see, and then filter by day and time.

Or you can fill out an online consultation and someone will ring you back.

Or you can go in and they'll book you an appointment in person.

For you, yes, but as others have said, this is not the system in place in many places, where you are just told the doctor will call you at any time ( no specific time provided). This is how it is at my practice and it is impossible. I agree with the OP.

It’s ridiculous. Then if you’re lucky they say will call some time in a four hour window so good luck waiting for that if you’re working.

It's a batshit crazy system and I am not even a teacher, but I often miss calls.