GP appointment

My surgery is in a small town not an inner city area. You have to ring at 8am for an appointment it's a bit of a rush, but they do have a surgery triage nurse you can talk to or go and see. If you ring too late all who are left are the doctors no one wants to see.

When I was working and it was non urgent I could usually get a dated appointment by pointing out that at 8am I needed to be on my way to work and that having to drive a 36mile round trip in the middle of the day was near impossible to organise.
Fortunately I have reasonable good health and don't need many urgent appointments.
My OH can be one of those "I must see a GP" about things that could easily be assessed by an experienced nurse.

My freind was a practice nurse in a much more working class town a few miles away and felt a lot more of her surgeries patients went to the GP over all sorts of minor ailments that people where we live would have sorted out for themselves.

There are two good GPs in our surgery one is Egyptian, he very thorough medically and very kind as well. The woman GP I am registered with has become burnt out is useless. I would only go to her if I know exactly what I want/need in advance.

Yes, good idea - it had crossed my mind to suggest it when writing the OP.
I should add that at my surgery the on call GP does call you back at the end of the morning if the problem is urgent and often the patient is at the surgery within the hour if necessary so obviously there are a number of appointments kept back for such 'emergencies'; it is the ridiculously complicated appointment bookings system that infuriates me. No wonder hospital casualty departments are bursting at the seams.
I know GP receptionists are often abused by frustrated patients, but sometimes getting past the 'Rottweilers' at the desk (just speaking generally!) is a major effort......

Good idea, to have a GN webchat about this.

Seems to be huge variation across the country. I have moved from one extreme, in SE, where it was very difficult to get an appointment (no bookable appointment for weeks and you can't get one on the day unless you are emergency) to a GP that gives a great service here in Wales. She nearly always runs late as she takes her time, ponders and doesn't rush consultations. She's part time in a smallish practice.
Some of this comes down to the way they manage their practices in terms of booking, employing enough nurses etc. I guess they are not all management-minded and don't pay a lot for practice managers.
Some of it comes down to targets. Under the previous government they were supposed to offer you an appointment within a short time scale (2 days i think). This was also a pain if you were working and wanted to pre-book for a day when you could get there. Tories got rid of the target. I think Labour said they would bring it back.
Some of it comes down to hugely increased demand. We go to the doctor far more than we used to. Multiple factors I suspect:
More older people.
More young families living a long way from gran.
All the awareness raising that tells people to go to their doctor - visits by the worried well? (my upstairs neighbour, in her late 70s i guess, the other day said she was on her way to the doctor because she had twisted her knee while she was away. it was getting better but she was going to the doctor to get it checked. she did not limp up the road!)
GPs get extra money for screening BP etc. Dr Margaret McCarthy, in The Patient Paradox, argues that this is concentrating GP resources on the middle classes who dutifully go and get their BP checked etc and taking them away from the people that are actually ill. Maybe the pharmacists should be the ones doing the screening instead.
And last but not least they we are not training enough of them are we, and to be honest, most of the home grown ones elect to work in more desirable areas. A huge proportion of them went to public school, so they are not going to instantly head for the inner city jobs are they.
Here is my small sample from England:
Leafy Solihull - lovely, mainly UK trained doctors, charming and obliging.
Leafy but less desirable Milton Keynes - majority of doctors overseas trained some better than others
Black country - all overseas trained and consistently not impressive
Almost from the outset the NHS has relied on importing doctors from commonwealth countries and it still does. (My GP comes into the category of overseas born/trained and lovely but even here in the distant corner of Wales half the doctors are overseas born )
Oh sorry this has turned into rather a long post. I think GN should get a minister or shadow minister on to talk about this.

Government meddling and tons of NHS managers have certainly not helped one little bit- and actually made things much much worse.

It's good that patients have become more aware and want to take an active part in their treatment. However, when they come armed with 20 or 30 pages printed of 'some' site on the internet- and insist they know better than a doctor after 8-9 years of training and many years of experience, and insist they are given 'xyz' kind of treatment, such and as such a drug or two, and of course anitbiotics on top- it does turn into a nightmare.

I know one who for sure thinks that he left just at the right time, and would not want to go back for all the tea in China- despite loving his job and the NHS with a passion.

Our surgery does have a phone queuing system, but last year they got a new number and it costs 4p per minute for the privilege of waiting.

I think phoning up on the day for an urgent appointment and having to constantly redial is a stupid idea. The practice should have a call queue system saying you are number xyz in the queue. I keep intending to ask the surgery why not but forget.

I cant fault our surgery, 3 GPS and I have yet to be refused an appointment whenever I have phoned, they split the week between them so I may have to wait until a certain day if I want my own Dr.
They have held winter weekend surgeries from November to March but that has been rolled out permanently, over a weekend if you require an appointment you have to go down to the surgery, then go back if its a later appointment as the reception staff are not in so no phone cover, but thats not a problem if you need to be seen.

Here's an insider view
www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/03/behind-the-scenes-gp-surgery-evenings-weekends

It's a long article but here's the last paragraph:
"Pity the poor young doctors setting out on their careers. "Years ago I think GPs were well respected and well liked," says the recently qualified salaried doctor. "But as funding's cut and time's cut and pressures mount and people become more demanding, there's less of a perception of us as being in an authoritative position. People come and they say, 'I'm not leaving unless I get this,' even if it's completely unrealistic. Our respect levels have gone down and we've been made scapegoats by the government. I did 11 years of training to get to this position and I only want to help people, but you'll come in and have people shouting at you and swearing at you and being aggressive because you can't quite deal with their demands. I feel we've been crucified in the press. I can understand where they're coming from with saying we should open seven days a week and try and do it eight till eight, but it would be impossible." Doctors, though, are expected to do the impossible. Surely there is a pill that will solve everything."

Walk-in centres are the "third way" as long as you don't mind a wait. Less grotty than A&E and you DO get seen that day.

My surgery doesn't do online booking, you have to phone after 8.30 a.m. to get a same-day appointment otherwise it's a ten to fourteen day wait.

What if someone falls ill later in the day? You don't always know if you'll need a doctor at 7 o'clock in the morning - no wonder A&E departments are overworked.

I hardly dare tell you this but we can always get an appointment on the day. We simply book online at 7.30am. Some appointments are available 2-3 weeks in advance. Appointments are also available in person on the day. We may not be able to see our named GP but we can always see someone and they are all good. On the downside there is a shortage of nurses and my husband can't always get his leg re- bandaged when it should be.

I`m getting up extra early tomorrow in order to be at the surgery by 8.45am to sit and wait, hopefully not for too long, and also hopefully for some relief from a water infection that`s kept me awake and on the go for weeks now, trouble is, once cleared it soon returns.

I rang this morning to ask for an appointment with our own GP to get the results of my husband's xray. The receptionist told me he was going on leave and the first appointment she could give us was June 24th. I asked for a phone call to tide us over till then and the doctor rang at lunch time. He suggested my husband should see him at 3.45 before his surgery started, which he did - sorted!

I can ring at 08:00 for urgent appointments, never failed yet. I can also book a week in advance for non-urgent appointments, or I can book on-line.

The only bug-bear with our doctors is that appointments often run late, usually because the doctors/nurses are joking/gossiping with the patients.

All in all, a nice friendly service. We really moved just outside the surgery catchment area, but were kept on the books so that we could maintain continuity of care.

Glad we didn't have too break in a new doctor.

Patient heal thyself! I tried to go online on Monday night for an appointment with any doctor - even the practice cat - as I am fairly sure I have a superficial thrombo - phlebitis which should get better of its own accord but might be a problem if it spread up my thigh. However no appointments before 16th June so I'll just have to hope for the best To be fair DH must have a red flag beside his name as we aleays get a prompt reaction when his health plays up as there is never time to play with.

--Marmight this happened to us once a few years ago and we rang the Health Board for the area and they told us we were able to have the prescriptions and if we did not get them we had a case against the surgery. We left it a day or so and went back to ask for prescriptions and got them.

The two week wait seems to be relatively common. Our surgery has a triage system. A doctor or nurse practitioner will call back (usually within 15 minutes) and discuss your case. This week the nurse asked me to pick up a prescription and leave a sample. Then they rang up to confirm that I did have an infection. Downside is that the antibiotic is making me feel worse than the infection! If the triage caller decides that the patient needs to see a doctor, there is time reserved at the end of morning surgery for these cases. Or, if you are too ill to go the the surgery, a house call will be booked.

I am so so lucky where I live - a village near Whitby in North Yorkshire - as I am always able to see my GP of choice within 24 hours. A nurse practitioner is always available, too. The best thing is that I trust them. I remember trying to get an appointment in Surrey where I used to live and being told that I would have to wait a week. I replied that I did not know if I would be ill in a week. I received an appointment for the next day.

My GP surgery is brilliant usually get an appointment same day if you ring before 8.30, doctors and receptionist are amazing, can't fault my surgery at all

Indeed there are, Grannylin.

Same Health Minister, same government.Maybe this 'truth' is preferable
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2587609/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Patients-not-GPs-getting-raw-deal.html
Who are these GPs on £100,000?My DD is on half this and gets called a'bitch' for not handing over what some patients demand. It's a political football and as always there are two sides to the story.

Quite an old report though, Grannylin.

Really?
www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/practice-income/hunt-admits-gps-are-doing-more-work-for-no-more-money/20000963.article

GPs are paid a fortune now even though they do less than in the past.