To ask what using your GP is like (trying to work out if mine is typical)

[HealthRobinsonCrusoe]

I can only make an appointment by phoning at 2pm. There's no online booking system. All the appointments are gone by 210pm. When they run out you just have to try again tomorrow.

This includes when they have texted you to tell you to make an appointment (otherwise they might stop repeat prescriptions).

There are no in person appointments except to see a nurse for samples. They call you over the course of a morning or afternoon. So you can't just take a short break from work.

They don't do shared care agreements. They don't recognise private diagnosis for prescribing so you have to go in the nhs waiting list before you can get treatment.

When they register new patients it's Tuesday mornings only. First 25 people only. You have to queue outside to physically collect a form. People go away disappointed.

The prescriptions are quite often wrong. When you try to phone to get them fixed you're cast into the chaos of the appointments system.

So aibu to think they're spectacularly awful jokers getting rich on suffering? Or is this pretty typical? It feels humiliating and scary dealing with them.

I'm in Edinburgh so I'd love to know if England/elsewhere in Scotland is better. Seriously thinking about moving because I feel like I've essentially no one to go to if I get seriously ill.

Honestly my GP is fab. Obviously appointments go quickly at 8am and the phone line is busy BUT anything urgent like a suspected infection, lump, etc they will tell you to come down and wait to see the emergency doctor. I’ve never not got an appointment on the day I’ve needed one.

Our GP is shocking, can't get an appointment in a reasonable time.e frame at all. I used to pay privately if I needed a GP appointment (rare for me luckily). Now I see my company offers a private GP service so I will be taking out the insurance and using that.

Phone at 830am. Triage nurse calls back and you either get a nurse or GP or prescription to collect.

never had a problem getting an appointment.

i know this is unusual

My GP is brilliant for getting appointments. They now have an online system which you can chose to contact them for all sorts of things, including to requests a F2F appointment. Only slight downside is you can only access the system during opening hours which is a bit odd. You can still call if you can’t use the online system.

I recently raised a query at 8am when the system opens and had received a phone call back within 10 minutes offering me a same day appointment.

Booking in for anything else seems to take quite a while though, currently part way through a 2 week wait for a blood test. Vaccinations can be a few months.

Centralish London.

No it's not typical, at mine you have to ring at 8:30 but if you do so on the dot you always get an appt. Nearly always an in person appt available if needed. I'm in the se of England

I'm Scotland too. You have to call at 8am and are then triaged. It's same day for urgent and next day for anything else. You can choose an in person or telephone appointment unless the GP insists on in person.

No online booking but they do recognise private diagnosis'.

My GP is brilliant. I suspect a rarity!

I can phone anytime, get through within about 3 minutes. Usually speak to a doctor same day, and if needed they will see me same day. Non urgent appointments usually within 10 days. Lovely receptionists.

Brilliant with kids, any concerns they see them within an hour or so.

We live in a big village.

Ours is rubbish.

You have to submit a form from 8.30am and it’s triaged and you’re contacted with an appointment.

This system is usually overrun within the hour and closes.

You are not allowed to make calls.

So if you need to see a Dr urgently after about 9.30am you have to call 111, who will either send you to a pharmacist or they will get you an appointment at the same GP you started with.

If you are able to everything is done online. Even signing up to them. If not able then you can come.in to reception.

Reception is really.helpful with stuff you don't get too.

Repeat Medication ordered online you can state what pharmacy.

Last week I had cystitis I messaged at 11:01 and had a response by 12:19 telling me to go/call to local pharmacy for prescription for antibiotics and to make an appointment if this didn't cure it.

When I had a fungal infection in my ear they sent me an appointment time (that was 1 week on as was seen as non urgent)

Day appointments can be booked from 8 am

Everything else is done on anima.

Doctors are helpful and friendly. When I came in for my ear appointment she said oh your med review is due soon shall we do it.now to avoid you returning. It took 5.more mins and I was out the door with a new prescription and a new type of hrt.

Really happy with my GP.

I'm on the English south coast and I think we're lucky with our surgery. You can phone at 8am to get in the phone queue, but I usually do an econsult and almost always get a response the same day by text- either offering an appointment that day if they think it sounds urgent, or sometimes they book you in for a blood test or refer you to a nurse practictioner etc. If it's obvious what the issue is from your description and/or any photos you've sent in, they sometimes just issue a prescription without even seeing you, and that can usually be collected the same day.

It's part of a group of surgeries in the town so you can be offered an appointment at one of three different locations around the town. Feel very lucky to have a good service.

My GP is amazing with kids, and clearly doing their best with limited resource for adults.

DS has always been seen the same day for urgent care, and we had a particularly awful run when he got cellulitis and a nasty case of chickenpox in the same week, which together combined to one point to look an awful lot like sepsis- and we were at the practice every single day, and the GPs were amazing.

Ive got a mystery “something” going on at the moment which is worrying and could be anything really, with the symptoms, and although it’s been a bit slow accessing diagnostics and secondary care, the GPs themselves have been amazing- and not one has trotted out the line “maybe it’s anxiety” (the standard for vague symptoms). Instead they’ve booked bloods, ultrasound, and put me in for “catch up” appointments to monitor me 4-weekly until we get to the bottom of it.

I'm in England. A rural practice based over two sites some miles apart. You can phone from 8am or make requests online 6am - 11 am. You can make admin queries and ask about test results through the same online system 24/7 which is useful too. Bet it makes it easier for the admin team to respond to rather than fielding constant phone calls.

The practice triages medical requests and you get a same-day response whether that's a call, text or offer of a face-to-face appointment with nurse, nurse practitioner or GP. It works well. Sometimes I've just needed them to do something like approve a change in medication or confirm that something is OK and I shouldn't have to take up one of their limited face-to-face appointment slots to do it. For some things you might have to wait a couple of weeks to see someone but I've also had same-day appointments with a GP when they thought it necessary.

Being rural we've got a dispensary attached to the practice and that's the bit that isn't working as well these days. Medication requests made online used to be ready for collection in two working days, now it can be a week or more. It's very variable. But that may be down to issues with the supply of some medication rather than the practice.

They're good at inviting for things like health checks and vaccinations too so we definitely can't complain. Friends in a neighbouring town have a much worse time of it with their GP practice. They have no online options to take the pressure off the phone lines, just a mad scramble at 8am to try (and usually fail) to get through. And fwiw OP I've family near Aberdeen and they can't fault their practice either. Like so much in the NHS it seems like a bit of a lottery.

Mine have online triage which you can fill in anytime during opening hours and it will be reviewed. There is a doctor who is dedicated to triage all day I think.

They decide to either call you themselves to assess you which may result in an appointment same day or one for a different day, or advice and/or prescription sent to your pharmacy.

If it’s a general routine appointment (smear etc) you’ll be called and the receptionist makes an appointment.

The last time I needed medical assistance I was called back at 8.45 after submitting at 8.30 and in the surgery being seen by a doctor at 9.40.

I didn’t have many reasons to contact during Covid but on a few occasions I did I was given in person appointments when needed as well.

IME mine are exceptional in terms of care and compassion.

Ours is pretty bad. Standard 8am race for an appointment with no online form/triage system.
They also don't prebook any appointments apart from smear tests and vaccines. So if you have an issue that really isn't urgent and could easily wait a couple of weeks (recently I wanted a contraception change, but no urgency to it), you still have to go through the 8am rush and have your phone available all day for a call that could come at any time. So if you have a job where that isn't possible, you can't even pre book an appointment for a few weeks time where you can sort your schedule or something.

I don't think they do earn that much tbh. Once their insurances are taking into account and all the other stuff they have to pay to be in practice I think a lot of them are on minimum wage. They work horrendous hours too.

Have you tried looking up inspection reports for your local surgeries? We have CQC reports in England. I'm not sure what the equivalent is in Scotland.

Mine used to have online booking but they turned it off and nobody I know has been able to get an appointment, since then.

The building is there but not convinced it's a real practice any more. It's just a queue. I went in the other day and stood in the queue for 45 minutes but then I had to go back to work as my lunch break was over.

For three months they've been texting me to tell me I need all these urgent appointments (I've got a serious long term condition) but they don't answer the phone. They turned off the app. They say you can't make an appointment in person. There's no way to make an appointment.

I've ordered my own blood tests and a book about my condition and I've got to make the best of it I can.

Tax is a racket right now. Just protection money in my view. The NHS isn't a real thing any more.

You can either call or use the ask first app. If there is a big queue they keep your place and call you back. Oh the app they ask your symptoms and can book you urgent appointments, or les urgent. If none available you're put on a call back list. I've never had issues getting an appointment for myself or my children.

We are in South Wales and our GP practice is amazing. All initial appointments are phone consultations and we get a call back within half an hour. If they want you to come in, it's super quick. You got 20 mins to get your butt up there..can obv take a later appointment but I'm always surprised how quickly they manage to fit us in.

When i was living in England it was almost impossible to get an appointment. I'd be on hold for almost an hour each time I phoned. Our practice merged with 2 others in the area so never knew which one you would have to trek and all of them were super busy. Everyone just got the same time slot and you were seen when you were seen. Bloody awful.

@Calian that sounds awful. Can you not change gp if there are others in your area?

It's become so bloody complicated. Why are they conducting themselves in this way? They're there to serve the needs of patients, not cause anxiety and frustration. I find it really hard to get my head around it all.

The GP I'm under will not allow staff to make his appointments. When you phone to see him, they have to email him, he then responds with his availability, which is invariably in 2 weeks time.

To get an appointment with another GP, you have to call at 9am & hope you'll get a same day appointment or there abouts.

I don't live in the UK and have to pay €60 to see a GP. I've had to go twice this month, so that's €120. GP wants to see me in 2 weeks, and you can bet that won't be a freebie.

Thankfully ours has been pretty good so far (I changed practices though because the one I first signed up to, I was repeatedly on hold for for 2 hours trying to make an appointment - and no online booking system at all).

We have an online form we can fill in that opens from 7am, and then they triage you and call back or text with a f2f appointment. Or, for minor things they will call you. I had a Dr call me at 7pm on a Friday evening - just about some blood test results that I'd queried via the online form but I was rather surprised.

We can view test results on line and request repeat prescriptions. I can get an appt for a blood test within about a week of being told I need one.

I even got to see the same GP twice after requesting it on the form!

This may be a downside for some people, if you work shifts etc, but they ONLY offer on the day appointments. I'm happy with that for now.

Reading through some of these pps, I can't understand how some GP practices have developed systems that work really well, while others are so awful. We live in very busy, constantly expanding city, so it can't be a rural / urban thing.

If you are on Facebook, you could ask on EGG for recommendations, or search the chat history. Yours sounds pretty bad op, I doubt if you changed it would be worse.

Midlands. 8am scramble for emergency appointments. No queueing system, so you may have to call up to 130 times before you get through.

Lead time for a non-urgent appointment is currently four and a half weeks, so if it wasn't urgent when you started ...

Meds reviews done from time to time ie not annually, but by a pharmacist who cannot make any decisions or order blood tests etc, so mine started in August and is ongoing.

General lack of transparency in dealings with patients. I have been lied to by the Practice Manager and when I called him on it, he swore at me and slammed the phone down! There have also been two data breaches; one where I was told that one of the receptionists had been on long term sick and why, and once when I was given someone else's test results, including detailed images!

When I was in the waiting room one day, a couple came in with a young DC who was clearly unwell. While waiting, they gave their new address. That took them out of the catchment area, so the receptionist cancelled their appointment and basically told them to take their sick child elsewhere!

The other practice in our area is in special measures.

In Ireland we don't have this. You phone any time of the day and generally get an appointment the following day or two. But we pay so the service is only used when needed

NHS app allows me to send the surgery a message - only during working hours I think though.
That's been the most helpful thing - apart from one of the receptionists was really helpful when I had a back issue that needed some good drugs. She got a GP to ring me and rang me back herself to make sure he had called.