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yvonne

GP Waiting times

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Is it just around here or is this a general trend ?

I am lucky enough to rarely need to see my GP, but this year, my OH tried to make an appointment for a very sore joint and had to wait over 2 weeks (the same again for an X-Ray,results etc, so about 6 weeks to be told they didn't know what it was !)

Today I made an appointment and found that the next available time is on 28th August (two and a half weeks away). Luckily it is not urgent, but it is starting to worry me if this is becoming the norm.

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Ours wont do advance appointments :wall: Luckily I haven't really needed to see my GP for years but the last time I rang up I was told I would have to ring back the next morning for a same day appointment, when you work 2 hours away from home that's not really practical, or you can take an emergency appointment which means showing up and sitting there until they slot you in.

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If you want to see a doctor of your choice it can be 1-2 weeks. However if you're prepared to see any doctor at the practice then you are usually fitted in the same day so long as you have rung early enough in the morning. Advance appointments are about a 2 week wait. If I can't get to see the doctor I happily say I'll see one of the nurses of have a phone consultation which usually gets me seen the same day.

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If you want to make an 'advance' appointment, the wait at our (university) practice is 2-3 weeks. Most appointments are 'on the day' - you have to ring at 8am and keep pressing redial as the world and his wife are doing the same thing and it's constant engaged tone.

I cheat and have 3 phones (2 x mobile plus landline) to try and get through. But even then I often finally get through at about 8.30 to be told all that day's appointments have gone and I should call again tomorrow.

 

It's all very unsatisfactory, especially for people who work a long way away from where they live. The Govt said it was planning on a change (did this get implemented?) so that people could sign up at a medical practice close to where they work rather than where they live - which would be a huge improvement, although many practices have said they won't use the scheme (including mine).

 

To be fair, the practice will usually squeeze something in if you say it's really urgent/bad, but that doesn't help with situations like the one the OP outlined

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Our doctors are brilliant, they have open surgery from 8.30 to 11 every morning of the working week and appointments in the evening and Sat am. This means you can always see a doctor any day, but you usually have to wait upto 1 hr, open surgery is great and valued by the patients enormously. The appointments are sometimes booked up for about 5-7 days.

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If I phone Monday I'm usually able to see a GP in the same week. Often follow up appointments are done by phone in a free days. Normally get the receptionist to tell me the blood test results if they have arrived back (but you need to know what the numbers mean). I've never had to use the GP's emergency appointment service, but I have used the county wide out-of-hours emergency system several times, and found it very effective. Usually getting to speak to a doctor in under an hour, and treated within a couple more hours at the local cottage hospital - it has no emergent department, but the doctor can send you there to be seen out-of-hours.

 

I've experienced the local Hospital A&E twice - both times by Ambulance albeit not life threatening. Both time we were left waiting for many many hours to be treated.

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Most of my ailments are dealt with by a practice nurse. When I do see a doctor I don't choose which one. The receptionist asks what it is for, I will sometimes be asked if it is an emergency. If I say yes, I will be seen the same day. It's a large practice. I am lucky, there are another two which are closer, and maybe not as good? for historical reasons I am allowed stay in this practice. I've been in it for 30 years.

My parents are in a closer practice and complain about being able to get appointments. Yesterday I had to call an out of hours doctor for my mum, she was too poorly to take to a walk in centre and not bad enough for me to call an ambulance. We had to wait 11 hours. It was a Sunday night to Monday morning. They were very busy. It would have been good to have been seen earlier, but otherwise it was efficient, and the end treatment seems appropriate. We both got some sleep whilst we waited. She is much better today.

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If you want to make an 'advance' appointment, the wait at our (university) practice is 2-3 weeks. Most appointments are 'on the day' - you have to ring at 8am and keep pressing redial as the world and his wife are doing the same thing and it's constant engaged tone.

I cheat and have 3 phones (2 x mobile plus landline) to try and get through. But even then I often finally get through at about 8.30 to be told all that day's appointments have gone and I should call again tomorrow.

 

It's all very unsatisfactory, especially for people who work a long way away from where they live. The Govt said it was planning on a change (did this get implemented?) so that people could sign up at a medical practice close to where they work rather than where they live - which would be a huge improvement, although many practices have said they won't use the scheme (including mine).

 

To be fair, the practice will usually squeeze something in if you say it's really urgent/bad, but that doesn't help with situations like the one the OP outlined

 

It's like this at our practice too.... I work starting at 8, I work over half an hour from home, so when I ring it stops me working and then I need to try and get the latest appointment so I can leave work as late as possible.

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Ah, I booked online too and assumed I could see all available appointments (the phone lines are always busy). I wonder if there are earlier appointments available by phone for those lucky few who wait long enough for an answer ?

Before I lived here in rural Somerset, I lived in the 'crowded' South-East and was always seen within a couple of days at most, but maybe it's also worse there now.

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Ours isn't bad. There are 3 options:

Book an advanced appointment - 2-3 weeks

Book an appointment for the next day - but need to ring at 8am and keep pressing the redial button

Book same day for emergency - 8am for am appointment, 2.30pm for afternoon.

 

You can also request a phone call, which can work quite well. And for babies they can be a bit flexible - I remember walking round Sainsbury's one Friday afternoon, watching the conjunctivitis appear from no-where. Rang the dr's up mid afternoon asking what they recommended I do, as no way could she wait until Monday for an appointment/drugs - and they squeezed her in no problem.

 

Most receptionists are great. Although one couldn't understand why I couldn't wait 3 weeks for a blood test (apparently a nurse was on holiday) - I was 39 weeks pregnant and needed the test that day! She is the type that give them all a bad name...

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My GP surgery can be really difficult to get an appointment. If its urgent then you can get seen on the day as long as you keep hitting the redial button when the surgery opens at 8.30am but if you want a routine appointment it's nigh on impossible and what usually happens is that you end up taking an emergency slot anyway so it rather defeats the object of 'emergency' appointments

I'm lucky to have my GP's mobile number (shhh...) he gave it to me a few years ago and he is happy for me to ring or text him which I do very infrequently. I have used on a couple of occasions in the last 12 months when things have gone pear shaped, I'm careful not to abuse it as I know it's a luxury to have such a direct line of contact.

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My surgery isn't too bad, though we do need to ring at 8am for a same day appointment. I needed an appointment a couple of weeks ago, so just stayed at home to ring as I was pretty certain I had shingles, which I did, and I work in a hospital. I managed to get a mid-morning appointment with no problems.

 

But my mother's surgery is atrocious. A couple of months ago she got what we think was an insect bite on her right hand, which was obviously infected. She had a huge blister and her hand was very inflamed. Apart from it being very painful, I was worried about the infection tracking, as she is 86 and very frail. But she could not get an appointment to see any GP or even practice nurse, despite calling at 8. I have since spoken to others who use that surgery and they have the same problem getting appointments. I was at home revising for an exam and so I took her to the surgery, as she said that she had been told that if she went in about an hour she could be seen. My mother is quite vague and when we got there the receptionist denied all knowledge of this and suggested we go to A&E. Bearing in mind that I was supposed to be revising, I did not want to spend hours waiting, so eventually we were directed to a walk in centre and saw a nurse who dressed the injury and told her to get the dressing checked and changed in a couple of days by her practice nurse. We then tried to get an appointment to see the practice nurse, but were told that she was fully booked. Again we were directed to A&E or the walk-in centre. If I hadn't been at home my mother would have had to had to take a taxi as neither the A&E or walk-in centres are on direct bus routes. Anyway, I rang at 8 the next day and got my mother an appointment with a doctor and she also managed to see the fully-booked nurse, but it was such hard work and the receptionists were quite unhelpful - no wonder a lot of people can't be bothered, until it's too late.

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More info re my parents surgery. I am repeatedly told by my mum that the surgery isn't open on a Wednesday.

I passed the surgery this morning and it was blatantly open. So I popped in and made an appointment for my mum for Friday. A necessary appointment, not just something on a whim, the only reason I was there at that time was because we had already been to the walk in centre, this is a few days after having had to call out an out of hours Dr.

I could have got same day, I chose Friday to suit me, not because something sooner wasn't available. I even got my mum's preferred Dr! I am generally happy with the service I get, but I wonder if the service is as easily understood and accessed by my elderly parents and people like them?

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We changed surgery a few years back because of similar problems getting appointments. I took my then 8-year-old daughter to the surgery on the way back from the school run (dropping off her siblings) and asked if she could be seen as she'd been having quite a temperature for a few days and missing school. I was told all urgent appointments were booked up and they could see her two weeks later. Well to be honest, 2 weeks later she'd either be fully well again, or in hospital or worse. What really bugged me, was that my husband always got 'emergency' appointments because he travels abroad for work and therefore tells them he can't make any other day and they give him urgent appointments even for the most trivial thing which could wait weeks, whereas a sick child has to wait two weeks. The other problem was that the appointments available 'in two weeks' were all with one doctor who I swear must have got his degree in a kinder surprise egg, as all he ever did with any of my kids (and husband the one time he really did have something serious wrong with him - pneumonia) was take a look at their face and say 'it's nothing, just go home and go on as normal'...

 

I enquired at a different surgery nearby and they agreed to take us on immediately, saying my daughter could be seen the same day. I've been very happy there, we don't often need doctors (especially considering we have four kids), but we've always been able to get appointments in a very reasonable time frame, often with a preferred doctor.

 

Unfortunately that surgery is now closing down and we have to move :roll:

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Well I can now say that I've seen this from the other side as I got a job recently as a doctor's receptionist - well I kept the job for 2 weeks and then resigned. It was the most miserable job I've ever had. :( Patients complained daily about not being able to get an appointment even though there were about 4 doctors and a nurse practioner on duty every day and they had an emergency walk in, a duty doctor that would call etc. On my second day a man threatened to burn the place down with us in it. :shock: The receptionists were fairly demoralised and grumpy with the patients, the patients were grumpy with the receptionists. I was told that I would get hardened to it but thats not me.

 

I have to say that my doctors and receptionists are lovely and I've never had any problems with them, in fact I had what could have been a serious problem - (I knew I shouldn't have read what the doctor was writing on the referal form :roll: ) and I was seen really, realy quickly. Thankfully it wasn't anything dodgy but scared me witless for a while.

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