Called GP at 8. Guess my position in the queue?

[HaveYouHadYourBreak]

GP opens at 8.
Called at 8.
After several "press 1 for... press 2 for..." options. Guess my position in the queue.
Clue: It's moved 2 places in 8 minutes.

@CocoLomax agreed. I once waited outside my Dublin GP till they opened and GP arrived. She took one look at me and saw me immediately. At the chemist by 9am with my prescription.

And those are the desperate ones in the queue…so many people don’t even bother until it’s dire because they know they won’t get anywhere

Ours has closed the Patient Triage link for urgent, on the day appointments, so it’s back to the 8am scramble.

still, it was a nice two months when it worked. I liked that.

That’s brilliant.

I once had a complication after surgery. Rang my GP at 9am, got an appointment for 10.25. During the appointment, my GP actually rang my surgeon and by 11am I was in my car driving to the hospital (90 mins away). By 1pm, I was sitting with my surgical team getting follow-up treatment.

I had to pay for the GP appointment (€60) but able to claim probably €40 of that back between health insurance and tax return/med1. My surgery was completely covered by health insurance, which is paid by my employer.

I think there’s this perception that there’s NHS or nothing, when the truth is that most countries have a system that works pretty well.

That’s shocking. My surgery is about to change from calling and waiting in a huge queue L to submit an online form and then they will contact u. I think it’s so they know who actually needs to see a gp and who can be dealt with by nurse practitioner, paramedic (yes we strangely have a paramedic) or sent to pharmacy.
Most appointments I’ve had in the last 12-18months (mostly for my children) have rarely been doctors. The paramedic was very thorough but he couldn’t prescribe so he had to leave the room for 5mins and go speak to a gp who agreed with the paramedics course of action and signed off the prescription.

150

This is absolutely shameful. How have we got to this? I remember Tony Blair starting this 8am frenzy by requiring GPs to see patients within 48 hrs (or something). So in order to achieve this, GPs stopped you being allowed to make appointments for like next week and made it a daily bun fight. It was then put to him on tv that people couldn’t get an appointment for next week and he was like 😵‍💫wtf
what we have now is some Frankenstein remnant of this.

I love the online requests. Nearly started a thread this morning about well it works.
I filled in the online form and submitted at 8am. 20 minutes later I got a text with an appointment By 10am I was back home having been seen and issued with 2 prescriptions.
Where the online triage works, it is an excellent system. I don't think I have ever waited more than five hours for a response.

I sit there pressing button from 7.58 and never been more than 6.
Maybe lucky with our gp, but you need a strategy. Sometimes dh will also try to see how has the magic dialling finger.

No matter what time you ring my local surgery and how extremely busy they are, it always says you're 'number 1 in the queue' 😡

You may have to hold for 45 minutes and there'll be no appointments left, but at least you're number 1...

Have you seen the state of your hospitals honestly I don’t think your system is anything to post about. And you declined to say how much you have to pay.

Absolutely, some very poor hospitals but some great ones too. The differentiator seems to be private vs public in almost every instance. I’ve had one experience of a public hospital and it was fine. Private hospitals are generally good. Food across both remains shite, for some reason.

I did post the costs in my second post. I have health insurance paid by my employer so my personal cost to access private healthcare is exceptionally low. There are good tax rebates on out-of-pocket costs. Most people I know in professional careers have private health insurance through their employer, and most schemes cover spouses and dependent children.

I’m not saying the Irish system is amazing. In fact, I think there are very few countries who do have excellent health systems that provide good value, efficiency, and patient-centric care but I do think there’s an “NHS at all costs” narrative in the UK when a lot of people are very ignorant to the alternatives.
And very defensive about it 😉

The last time I called, which granted was a couple of years ago, wouldn’t accept anymore calls if there were more than 50 already in the queue. But to find out that it was just going to hang up on you, you had to listen to the 90 seconds of info before it would tell you there were no positions left in the queue and then disconnect. So frustrating!

I think the trick is to know what option you need for appointments. For example I know ours is always option 1. So as soon as the call connects and I hear the automated message, I press 1 and skip all the listening to options, repeat as needed if yours has multiple steps, make a note of them somewhere. Our GP surgery has a callback option too so once it saves your place in the queue you can hang up and they'll call you when you get to the front which is better if you're also trying to usher the kids out the door to school of similar!

But UK people could absolutely pay for a private GP appointment and have the same service as in Ireland

My old GP surgery was the same, highest I ever had was 108 I don’t even bother waiting in the queue. I was 28th the next day and when I got through they told me they only had emergency appointments left “you know for heat attacks and stoke symptoms”
I did actually get an appointment after I pointed out that surely anyone phoning with those symptoms should be told to call an ambulance as that’s a not something that can wait 8hours to be assessed.
thankfully my new surgery has an online consultation thing and it’s a far easier process

Heaven knows what's going on with our GP practice. If you go in and ask for an appointment you get told to go home and make it online. But the appointment will be by phone.

DH was there for a blood test last Monday morning and he said the place was empty and the receptionists were sitting around chatting. Previously in the morning the place would be really busy, but these days no-one can see a doctor.

DH was really ill for about six weeks last year (sepsis) and never actually saw a doctor in all that time, and it all seemed really hit and miss when they lost a blood test, someone prescribed the wrong medicine, and then a doctor picked up the mistake and rang us on a Saturday to tell him to urgently stop taking the meds that had been prescribed. They seem to be struggling since people who just seem keen to make the most possible profit took over.

I dread actually needing a doctor.

Ours are usually over 50 in the queue for triage and to make routine appointments.
It is such a dreadful service and very frustrating.

Everyone has to put up with that, my gp has an app, not a very good one where you can set up days and times you are available so you make an appointment and then you get an unsuitable appointment and have to ring anyway, I can't be bothered

I was on this morning at 8.30 am cos that’s when they open and was 112 in thr queue when I eventually got through no appointments to be had. So I have to do the same tomorrow cos they won’t give me an appointment next week cos for me it’s not an emergency.

Even a telephone call next week would be good too but no I have to phone again.

4 days I’ve done in the past just to get an appointment.

Bloody hell, this is awful, how has it got so bad? I'm another who isn't in the UK and the health service here is far from perfect but we do at least get to see someone within the appropriate timeframe.

I've not had any problem with contacting my GP via the app and usually get called within a morning....

My gp surgery has the phone at 08.00 for on the day appointments but you can phone any time for a non urgent appt.
They have an online appt booking service but there are never any slots.
They have an online consult system which is excellent.
So overall, they are good.
Absolute nightmare for repeat prescriptions though. It is just a lucky dip essentially.

My go only takes requests via the app, if you can’t use the app the reception sends the request for you so you will be behind all those who sent them from 6pm the day before. The app system is excellent though, you often get a reply on a Sunday afternoon events can’t complain

ours has gone over completely to the triage form method. It’s brilliant here and everyone seems happy. I rarely need to see a gp face to face but have seen practice nurse, community pharmacist, paramedic, phlebotomist, first line physio and had telephone gp appointments. I’ve recently returned to work after long term sick and it’s been really easy to be signed off (awaiting and then recovering from surgery that I had privately as two years to wait for the surgery was madness). Today I’ve done the form to ask for a load of medication, they won’t put them on a repeat for some reason, but happy to respond to the request, send my prescription to pharmacy2u and I will have them through the door by the end of the week.

I do use my Bupa for gp appointments if I need to get a referral, I’ve got top level cover and it’s so easy. I also now use private physio as the difference between nhs and private was insane. Services are cut to the bone.