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 have an option of text or phone call

At my surgery you can only put an e consult in at certain times (funnily enough also after 8am M-F) and once they've received a certain number they won't take anymore.

The actual medical staff at my practice are great but trying to get to see them is a nightmare.

My GP is a ring at 8 and by the time you get through all appointments are gone. They do have e-consult where they call back usually within a few days, but I'm also a teacher so often miss the call and have to start the whole process again. I just wish you could still book appointments in advance. I have two kids, so I dread anyone needing an appointment.

I have this issue too. One time when I did an econsult I had a massive rant about it and said I didn't appreciate being lectured by reception staff when I genuinely can't pick up the phone. They've changed the system now so you can add a time it's best for them to call.

I often wonder how GPs and health are staff themselves get appts as they must be in the same situation!

Our GP's lines don't open until 8:30. Ridiculous. Not that you can get through ... and you'll be 37th in the queue at 8:30.25....

Mine allows us to list all the times you're not available for phone calls.

For us the website opens at 6am. I enter in details and request an email response. This is always ignored and the doctor will ring me which I don't answer (driving or at work), they don't email (so I don't know why it's an option) but if I log back onto the website there will be a note saying they rang, couldn't get hold or me and this inquiry will be closed if I don't respond within an hour or two. At this point I often find that I CAN have an online chat with the doctor/nurse/whoever and get to where I need to be. But sometimes the call has been closed.

Annoyingly the website 'closes' when too many people have logged on it and it closes between 4pm and 6am so I can't put in a non urgent request for info when it occurs to me in the middle of the night.

😂😂😂 you'll look petty af doing that.

How do you think people cope if they need to pee at 8am and they're working? wet themselves?

Just ask a family member or friend to make the appointment.

I have anxiety, I don't phone up anyone ever. My GP has an online booking system because it's not 1991, but before they did my partner called.

Just ask a family member or friend to make the appointment.

Funnily enough I don't especially want to get my mum - who lives hundreds of miles away - or my best friend to call and discuss my worryingly lumpy breast with the receptionist at my surgery. And not everyone has a partner.

It's not effective for anyone regardless of age or employment status.
Missed call because of numerous scenarios back to the beginning.
The very nature of a medical call is also something that most of us would rather not have to do in a public situation.

Patients would need to give consent for this. That's a whole new level of pita!

Can I ask a family member or friend yo talk the call from the doctor and answer all of their questions too?

If you were in my class, I'd sit you next to a TA.

You would need to fill out a consent form and get your partners agreement that they gave permission for you to discuss medical matters on their behalf.
We have this in place .

If you were in my class, I'd sit you next to a TA.

😂😂😂

It's ran for the convenience of the medics, not the patients.

Tip: when you log onto the NHS app, under 'appointments' it will often show you the time slot you've been booked into with the clinician. They won't actively tell you as it might be earlier or later and they prefer the flexibility, but it'll be on there. Whenever they say it'll be some time today now I just go online and can see it's at 10am or 2pm or whatever so at least I have a rough idea.

Strangely, people have different circumstances to you and your surgery.

OK, everyone who is not happy (most posters) - imagine you are now the practice manager, and it is entirely up to you how you manage appointments. Tell me what you’d do.
I’m not being provocative, I’m genuinely interested.
Bear in my you have 1 GP for each 2300 patients, and they range from newborns to 100 year olds, working people and not working people, healthy people and terminally ill people, and so on.
What system would you establish that meets everyone’s needs?

Mine is so odd, I am lucky as I can take a call during work time but it is nigh on impossible to use the online system as it only recognises very simple things like, rash, acne etc. If it is anything more complex like my log term condition has fallen up etc the computer says no. It is a way of making people go private and I have a few private GPs opening near me, presumably staffed by the GPs who were trained by the NHS

Very fair question @MumblesParty.

I don't have an answer.

A GP further upthread also made a good point about having tried every possible system.

However thus thread had shown in consistency between many surgeries. Some do seem better than others.

I said that to her and I think she wrote to complain to the GP, no idea what happened after that.
Their initial solution was that she goes in person to make an appointment and waits there for a triage slot some time later in the day, which they thought was very generous.
Surgery said they’d never had any complaints before from people who couldn’t use a phone. Apparently they expect people in this situation to get their daughters to take the call for them, or a trusted neighbour. But no one should be expected to divulge confidential medical information to a relative or neighbour just because they can’t use a phone!
Unfortunately too many people accept conditions like this unquestioningly, particularly if they are old. Guess the surgery don’t have any people in their 20s or 30s who are deaf and whose daughters may be only 7 years old… 😡

There’s research on what systems work best for different populations, and some experts who you can call in to work out how to improve things for a specific surgery, like these people https://www.pcc-cic.org.uk/practice-support/

Not all practices will have the money or the headspace to want to do this, of course.

Tell them really nicely not to worry, it's not their fault the system doesn't work and that you will just attend A&E and explain that they won't see you because you can't be free to answer every second of the day for several days.

An appointment is miraculously found. Also works saying that you will call 111 and tell them the same.

and that’s the problem. Unless the demand (ie population) reduces, or supply (number of doctors) increases, there is no system that works for everyone.

I'd like an online triage system, please, so that I can fill it in at a time convenient to me.
I'd like to be able to specify when I'm available to take a call.
I'd like "late night" ie after 5pm appointments to be available.

@Balloonhearts can you read my posts on this thread please? You might learn something.