GP surgery

Most GP Practices have an online solution that will let you submit a form directly to the practice. I would really recommend using this method. Most practices will then contact you with regard to your submission.

i went to see my doctor 3 weeks ago and was due to see her yesterday but due to problems with my legs and lymphedema i could not get to the surgery, she called me and then came out to visit today. i live in scotland, glasgow and even during the pandemic i have always been able to get any help i needed from my surgery, i am so lucky with the gps i have.

They have simplified things in our surgery as follows:

1. You call to request GP appt or phone call with GP
2. *Receptionist answers (eventually....) asks you to describe symptoms
3. *Receptionist diagnoses and moreorless tells you to go and do one.
4. Phone call ends
* if receptionist happens to have nipped to loo or on coffeee break, phone answered by cleaner - repeat steps 2-4

Its good to read the posts from people in praise of their GP surgery....

Really positive .....

🙂

Edith3

Thakyou BlueBelle,
I have worked as a receptionist in primary care for many years.
The insults, agression and even threats have become commonplace.
Staff turnover is enormous and morale rock bottom, many of us end our day in tears.
Please remember that reception staff can only work within the terms of their remit. The practice partners are the ones making the rules.

We thank you for what you do....
X

Thank you for all your replies....

I have been down to our surgery and havr been told to ring up at 8am and ask for a sooner phone consultation appointment...

This left me slightly baffled because I thought the appointment I was given WAS the soonest appointment!

But after all that I have given it much thought and decided to wait till May (( 32 days precisely)) because there will be people out there who are in far, far, far greater need for a doctors time.....

We have varying degrees of service here in BC.

Last month I badly twisted my ankle while walking. I called my GP as soon as the office opened the next day, I was seen by 11:30 and sent to the hospital for xray; done by 12:30. The next day my Dr. called me to tell me to stay off it for 3 days, and sent an email with prescription to pick up crutches and info on physio exercises.

Meanwhile in my DH's clinic there is often a 10 day wait to see a doctor, then it is a phone call to see if you really need a face to face appt.

In my DD's city it is very hard to even get your name into a clinic, so they have to rely on either walk in clinics, or emergency.

I think the government really needs to revamp the system, and encourage more graduating doctors to become GP's. Most are specializing, for higher earnings and better work/life balance.

When I am due a review of my medications in a telephone call, I always ask the name of the doctor who will be phoning me, and then google him/her.

It's never been a doctor from my practice, and last time it was a private knee surgeon from the BUPA hospital who asked me about a test I had 8 years ago which was completely irrelevant.

Ours is OK ....... the receptionists go off on one telling you how busy they are .... they don't care if you are in pain ........ but the doctors are professional

Ours are terrible - very few face to face appointments. A friend of mine who is in the lucky position to be well off now has a private GP. I take myself to the Walkin Centre. They know me so well I have an invite to their Christmas party.

Mallin have you emailed your GP and spelled out this situation in writing as you've outlined in your post?
Does your GP practice have a manager or senior partner you could complain to?

Your situation is totally unacceptable.
I'm so sorry you've had such awful treatment ☹️

I haven’t seen a GP face to face for over three years. I had a chest infection recently, the receptionist said I needed to see someone F2F, it was with a nurse who was able to prescribe antibiotics - I’m not complaining as it was lovely to see a human, rather than just hear a distant voice on the phone with a GP who seems to have a 10 minute timer going. I can’t even imagine what any of the doctors look like as I’ve never met any of them, having moved here 4 years ago. When you get the call back it could be any one from a big pool of doctors as our surgery is part of large group of practices.
It’s not even an option to move to another practice as where I live all GP surgeries are part of larger group practice and other surgeries won’t accept patients out of area.
There aren’t any online forms on our GPs website that we can fill out to get treatment and of course the online booking service was withdrawn as soon as COVID hit. So the only way to get urgent (and non urgent) treatment is to join the telephone queue at 8am. 😐

maddyone

My GP is excellent. The whole Practice is good too.

so is ours

Oh yes, I booked this with a receptionist (with great difficulty, as they don't like to give out appointments when you're in the surgery), whilst I was in the practice complaining about them not sending the full list of medication I'd ordered via the app (practice doesn't like paper or f2f requests), and that the app has now thrown me out and won't let me access it.

Similar issues here.

I have MS and one of my more annoying symptoms is the feeling of an army of ants marching through my bones.

I had a particular antihistamine for several years that really helped, but it was taken off the market 3yrs ago, and since then I've tried so many different ones that I've lost count.

I've recently been given a new one but the paperwork that came with it says you shouldn't be on it for more than a week or two and I've just been given another 2 months worth, so I asked for a telephone conversation with the doc or practice pharmacist.

48 days' wait for the pharmacist
49 days' wait for the doctor

For a flipping phone call!

In March I just couldn't get through to my doctors surgery. My son saw how upset I was getting, so he phoned 111. They said I would get a call back as soon as possible. The phone woke me up after midnight!

forgot to say, it says "walk in "centres, then it leads you to book appt???????

you could tell me that I am off topic, but anyone here been told to book booster covid vaccine, and tried to do just that?

I am in the process of trying to do that, and came here for some light relief!!! duh!

online places to get vaccine keeps changing, you have to be so quick off the mark when a local vaccine place comes on the computer,, I stopped to take a breath and it then disappeared, despite trying to get it back.. I think this Government, government(?) is trying to kill us all off with heart attacks.

My practice is excellent, with the proviso that I find having to ring at 08:00:01 for an appointment and it still being 15 minutes to get through very triggering.
I've never had a problem telling the receptionist why I'm ringing, and in the most recent case - a throat infection - I was seen and medicated the same day. I had to drive 5 miles to a Walk-in centre with minimal parking but that's where the respiratory department is based, and I had an appointment time. I thought it a creative use of resources.

I can’t understand why getting a face to face appointment with your GP is almost impossible.
They say it is shortage of GPs but my practice has the same doctors as before covid. The same doctors who you could get an appointment within a couple of days. Phone conversation diagnosis was unheard of and you didn’t have to be triaged by the receptionist.
It’s as though the GPs enjoyed the distancing from their patients during covid and decided they wouldn’t go back to the old ways.
When did doctors stop caring.

So grateful for excellent GP practices both here at home and for my Mum in Sussex.
I have had more contact with the Sussex GP over the last four months than any doctor ever before. The whole practice has been unfailingly kind and helpful. Doctor always phones and is a person rather than a prescribing machine - very happy.
I have also made sure that they know how greatly appreciated they are.
So sorry for people who struggle with difficult surgeries; just adds to the stress of feeling poorly.

Dixie if we try econsult we get a message it’s closed and to try again the next day, it’s always the next day.
It’s like the 8 am dash, but is closed down after about 15 minutes.

We are all puzzled why things have become so difficult post Covid Annie1. I spent 90 minutes waiting on the phone this week, only to be cut off as I got to be caller number 3. I gave up fir the time being.

Your life in St Lucia sounds wonderful. We visited the Caribbean fir the first ( and only) time a few years ago while on a cruise. We stopped at St Lucia which looked beautiful even in the rain , we got soaked, but I still have a picture of arriving in the sunshine etched in my mind.

I have given up trying to get through to my gp surgery. I needed to book an appointment so straight after work, made the call from my car (hands-free) and started making my way to the surgery. It was still ringing as I pulled up outside (40 minutes later) so I marched in only to find two receptionist’s happily chatting away to each other! Bearing in mind this was 17:00 in the evening, the quiet time. I asked if there was something wrong with the phones as I showed them my still ringing phone and was told they were busy!
If I need an appointment now, I go on their website and submit an econsult request. They usually get back to me within 48 hours with an appointment, albeit it’s always a telephone consultation but at least I get to talk to a doctor.

For those who ask I am in St Lucia. I did not go home in March 20 because of the outbreak of Covid. I have chronic heart problems and only one kidney so I must try to use common sense and take my meds regularly. Since then I only came back to pack and transfer my stuff here. I had a good cardio who I saw annually and paid as he had looked after husnand and me for many years. Now if I had a serious problem I would go to Martinique (10 mins flight) which is part of France so good services. We need to remember that GPs are private practitioners who are paid by the govt. to provide a service. I read today that BMA is a very influential group who persuaded the govt years ago not to give out too many places in universities to study medicine because they feared it would affect doctors salaries if there were too many doctors. I was in UK during the Brexit referendum. I just read Mallin’s post and I am so sorry that she cannot get the service she needs. Here I pay $28 ( about £7) to see my favourite doctor who can take up to half an hour with me to give me an ECG listen to my heart and lungs and does everything she can to keep me going. I love her ! In fact the slow pace of life and thd continuous sunshine have made me feel so much better.

I am genuinely puzzled as to why services at GP practices seem to have deteriorated so much in such a small amount of time.