To think there should be a way of reporting GP surgeries that don’t have online booking available from 8.00-6.30

[BurtsB33]

We were told by Wes Streeting that online booking would negate the morning rush, facilitate being able to get GP appointments and more importantly make booking easier. We were told all GP surgeries would now have this.

In reality like many our GP shuts online booking down early in the day. There is no other way to book. It’s far harder to contact our GP surgeries and to see a GP particularly if you work full time.

So if surgeries aren’t keeping to government promises and declaration of what is/ should be happening surely there should be a quick way of reporting them so the situation can be rectified.

GP surgeries are delivering 30-40 million appointments per month. Thats around half the population each month. Thats 90% of patient contacts in the NHS with 5.6% of the NHS budget (and falling).

Everyone complains they can’t get an appointment but if that many people are getting one obviously there are plenty of people who are managing it!

If you feel your surgery aren’t doing enough to be accessible then vote with your feet and register elsewhere.

Wes Streeting is a moron and political promises are always broken. No one who works in the NHS thought that it would all be fixed just because Wes said GPs had to do even more with even less.

It’s Wes who should be held responsible for making unrealistic promises! That being said I feel the pain. Our surgery has never offered any kind of online booking system, the closest we ever got was a few years ago you could fill in a form with the reason of the appointment (I.e follow up, routine checkup, yearly review) and dates/times you either were available or unavailable whichever suited better. You’d then receive a text or email with a date and time. This system worked well for me as I need two different yearly review appointments for 2 different conditions and the receptionists were always able to get them back to back on the same day. That stopped during Covid.

A year and a half ago I found out I had issues with B12. I’d need to have injections every 12 weeks. The care assistant used to be able to book me in for my next one while I was there. I never missed an appointment. Then 9 months ago they stopped care assistants booking appointments, and you couldn’t book anything further than 6 weeks ahead.

The online request system is only open between 8:30am and 10:30am regardless. If you’re lucky enough to get to use it, there is no appointment request option. I once tried to send a message asking for the 12 week appointment 6 weeks before it was due and I had a message back saying to ring the surgery to arrange an appointment. So tried at 11am, 22 people in the queue ahead of me with the average wait time of 45 minutes. No callback option. Had to hang up as I was at work.

I’m lucky I have an understanding manager who will let sit on hold for ages every 6 weeks to ensure I get my B12!

I’m thankful I have the NHS, and I don’t want to see it go! So I say let’s put the responsibility on those who are truly responsible for our NHS issues and not individual surgeries, hospitals or doctors.

But the 10 people can all go into the shop and look. They aren't barred from entering

Ours has online booking, but only if you want an appointment in 3 weeks +. No use at all if you feel ill today (you used to be able to get same day appointments online, they’d save so many slots for them) I don’t know when it all went wrong, I feel like covid cocked it all up.

Email your MP.

@Thechaseison71 you can walk into your GP surgery too, and look at the people in the waiting room.

Agreed. Or at least you could book for 2-3 days away.
Now it’s same day or, as you say, 3 weeks plus.

I am sure that a lot of the “same day” people would be fine to have an appointment 2-3 days away.

It’s such a crazy and frustrating system

But you cant get on the online system which is what we were talking sbout

My GP surgery does this - ie some appointments are released on the day and some in advance.But as PPs say, their hands are tied if the demand for appointments is far greater than the supply.

my surgery introvert the online triage system in September. I actually think it is good….. until something goes wrong because there doesn’t seem to be a backup plan.

So, I used the online system to book a face to face GP appointment in November. It was great. Very smooth….. or at least it was once I updated the NHS app. When I clicked the booking link, I got a ‘no appointments’ screen. Then I updated the app and I was offered a choice of appointments so i took one.

On Friday (about 9 or 10 days ago) I sent a message describing a health problem. Within 30 minutes I got a message back from a doctor saying I needed a face to face appointment within 1 week.She gave me link to book an appointment. There were a few for the following Friday which clashed with an appointment with my ADHD/autism psychiatrist, so I couldn’t take any of them. On Monday morning, I clicked the link in the doctor’s message several times between about 6:30am and 9am and I always go the ‘no appointments’ screen. Same thing happened the next day, except I phoned the surgery at 8am. I spoke to the receptionist at 8:05am and I said I was having technical difficulties because the system was not offering me any appointments. She said it was because the appointments are released at 8 and I had looked too late. I told her I had looked at exactly 8am both days and also at many other time and not been offered anything and surely the appointments don’t all go in 5 minutes! She then said there was nothing she could do because only doctors could give out links and she wasn’t allowed to override the system although eventually she did offer me an appointment for 27th January but I didn’t take it because it was 2 weeks away and I hadn’t been told 4 days earlier that I needed an appointment within a week.

2 hours later, I had a telephone appointment with the pharmacist at the surgery so I
told her that I was having technical difficulties with the online system and she said she would get someone to sort it out and phone me back. Nobody did.

By lunchtime, another (totally unconnected) stressful thing happened and that was the last straw - I went into autistic shut down and when that happens I have to shut myself away from everyone and everything and I can scarcely eat. Due to this, I was not in a position to click rhe doctor’s link. When I next felt better and tried to book, the link had expired. That was the same day I had my appointment with the psychiatrist. She wrote a letter to the surgery saying that their system had sent me into shutdown and so therefore I didn’t get the care I needed. I told her what my health problem was and she said I needed an appointment urgently - she explained in her letter to the GP why she thought it urgent.

it is actually a good surgery and I think the new system is good but this time it has gone badly wrong for me because of a series of unfortunate small mishaps. I think they will take the psychiatrist’s letter very seriously. I imagine I’ll get an appointment on Monday or Tuesday. But what a massive faff.

They are checked by their local ICB. If you find there online consultation form is not open then you can report to your ICB.

But whatever the system is there will be a limit in the number of appts available. Each surgery will have their own method, but say they have 50% of appts available for on the day urgent issues, then a percentage for in 3 day, some for in a week and some for 2 weeks, once they are gone they are gone. GPS cannot book more than 2 weeks in advance due to Wes advising that all appts must be within 2 weeks.

We don’t have to offer online booking at all.

We do, however have to offer online requests for appointments between 8am and 6.30pm with a response within one working day.

Streeting announced this change with little or no notice to GP surgeries. No extra staff and ever decreasing funding. He did not consult GPs as how best to implement change. They simply can’t create more appointments out of thin air.

‘Holding them to account’, complaining etc will just create more bullshit levels of stress and paperwork that will take a clinician away from seeing patients and therefore less appointments.A more productive use of your time would be to write to your MP. Blaming GP staff and ‘holding them to account’ is asinine. They have no control over this. If Streeting actually engaged with them that would a) be professional and respectful and b) probably result in a solution if he’d actually listen to the people on the shop floor.

😁😁. There is never more than six in ours. Most of those are to see nurses.

I promise not a goady post or a whose is better…more of a genuine question.

Why can’t a certain number of same day appointments be held open and the remainder be forward booked? Doesn’t that address most needs?I mean clearly more doctors and appointment availability would be ideal but it doesn’t really make sense to clog same day appointments with non-urgent ones. No need to add the overall number of appointments or doctors.

So if you have someone on a med that needs a periodic review say every 6 weeks. They go to an appointment get put on the med then on the way out the door they schedule a follow up appointment in 6 weeks.

Conversely in 6 weeks with the system you have now that person is fighting with all the urgent cases that legitimately need a same day appointment let’s say for a rash that hasn’t responded to home treatment and is getting severe.

Sure you might have someone who books an appointment 6 weeks out and their issue resolves or they can’t attend, then you institute a confirmation text or call a few days out and if it gets cancelled you now have an open urgent appointment or a pre bookable one.

I mean sure at first it might be a little difficult but generally speaking it should even out. There will still be people who can’t get a wanted same day and there will be people who are disappointed that they have to wait 6 weeks for a non urgent one but wouldn’t it be better overall?

I have to have bloods done every 6 months. The last four times I have been there I have been on my own in the waiting room. No one comes out, no one goes in. And I am always called in about 20 minutes after my appointment time.

The e-consult isn't about appointments. It's about answering queries or deciding whether to offer appointments.

If someone sends in a prescription at 6.25 it should be accepted. It doesn't mean they have to do it there and then, but it shouldn't be the case that you have to fight to get on the system before 8.15 the following morning for a simple admin task.

Before the changes, my surgery did split the system for appointment requests and admin requests so you could actually do admin requests once they were "full" but with eg my mum's surgery you couldn't.

And where my mum is the GP is actually very good at doing prescriptions. The attached pharmacy is rubbish and is saying they need 14 days to fulfil a prescription (unless it's an emergency). But they won't accept requests for certain medication within a certain period of the last request - so you end up in catch 22.

Exactly. People don't understand the difference.

My mums surgery in Telford doesn't even have an online system it's phone at 8am and they release same data pots but they will
gone by 8.30am. I've just complained to the CQC as there's no triage system in place! I even contacted the practice to complain and was told pick up a form in the surgery and drop it off, nothing online and complaints processes are meant to be easy and accessible. It's Woodside medical practice by the way, don't expect anyone to know it but it's beyond terrible. Spoke to them last week as my elderly mums eye was in a really bad way and was told to take her to A&E as it could be sepsis. The knew this despite not seeing her or even asking me what any of the other symptoms were (none of her symptoms indicated early or late sighs of sepsis) They're advice is go to A&E as there's appts and feel that's their cop out "could be sepsis"

in really feel for patients in this situation, it's beyond dangerous. My GP practice which is nearby but mum can't sign up to as she's out of catchment is fab, clear triage system in place, respond with a plan on the same day. I can't see why some practices are incapable of this.