GP appointment

Our gps are a large health centre. You have to ring at 8 am for a same day appointment. Start ringing at 8 and can never get through , put on redial, may get through by 8 15 when all appointments are gone! They don't do weekends or late nights or bank holidays. Book advance maybe lucky to get one for a months time. No wonder the local A and E can't cope, people who can't get GP appointments go there.

Maybe think about changing surgery if this is the norm?

That's no use, I can see a GP same day but if I want to see a specific GP may have to wait a couple of days for non urgent.

PS in a two-GP practice.

Fourteen days is excessive. Sounds as if the practice is very badly organised.

Just to rub salt in the wound, I can often get a same day appointment even for something non-urgent!

It is a bit much expecting patients to wait 14 days for an appointment (I've had exactly the same response here when I requested an appointment this week - nothing until 18 June).

We have six GPs but there's generally only four of them on at any one time and they only tend to do a half day (but the do cover care at the local hospital but as I've volunteered there, I know that that takes, on average, 30 minutes or so depending on how many of their patients are in). What the rest of the day is taken up with I have no idea.

This is why I bang on about pharmacists taking a more pro-active role - especially with prescriptions and minor ailments; my appointment is because I need a prescription that GP won't put on repeat, I have to go and ask for it and it seems such a waste of an appointment and also having to wait two weeks to get it!

I do sympathise with you.