Gp appointments or lack of!!

Kate1949

We can't get to see a GP. We can get to see a nurse or a 'practice something or other' but there is usually a two week wait. My husband goes there for B12 injections and says the waiting room is always empty.

Whenever I have managed to get an appointment, the waiting room has always been full, so I don't accept that staff aren't there or not working. They just can't cope.

Last year I lived in Gateshead, had a non urgent health issue (rarely bother my gp) and had to wait 10 weeks for an appointment. I was shocked. We moved to Northumberland in October last year, signed up with a gp and I needed another non-urgent appointment, just a 2 week wait so I was kinda happy with that which was in December. I rang on Wednesday gone for a further non-urgent appointment at 9.10am and was asked if I could get there for 10.40 that day. So impressed.

Now dentists…that’s a whole other issue.

Do they have an internet appointment booking system? My surgery only do it that way? Hate it.
Call the NHS 111 (101) not sure which ! See if they can help.
Good luck

Don’t know! The same as a policeman? Historical beings

Only been to a walk in centre once and it was am experience! There were 3 docs on duty one was grossly overweight , lanky greasy hair and his bare stomach bulging through his shirt where the buttons had come undone, quite frankly looked very dirty and unkempt. The second one who came into the waiting room to call the next patient, said something a few times and got no response, none of us could understand what he had said. He came back with the receptionist who announced the name of the patient and off they trotted. I was almost ready to go back home or to A&E as I knew I would have to have to get undressed and examined and didn't want to be examined by the first doc and would have been unable to understand the second. Luckily my name was then called by a female, clean and tidy doctor who was great spoke clear English and advised
me to go straight to A&E if it happened again.

More fortunate in my area. I phone at 8.00a.m. when the phone line opens, join the queue and have always had a same day appointment when I eventually get through to the receptionist. This is Scotland.

Ring 111 they will
Get you an appt with the out of hours doctor

My mother is having this problem. She is 82 and fragile. I'm getting very worried about this. She waits in the telephone queue only to be told there's nothing and ring back in the morning.

I think it is disgusting the way GPs have operated since Covid. It’s said GPs are leaving, that’s why you can’t get appointments. So why is it that my surgery has taken on another doctor since Covid yet you can’t get an appointment for weeks. They had it cushy during lockdown, working from home or part time and they don’t want to go back to the old ways of 9-5, 5 days a week. Non of the staff at my practice work full time. I went to my surgery to pick up a blood test form from the receptionist. There was no one in the waiting room at all yet I passed the walk in centre ( in the same building) as I walked in and it was standing room only and a board saying minimum wait 6 hours. I’m 76 and dread being ill.

Very difficult to see a real GP. Usually if you can get an appointment here it's with a paramedic. One diagnosis for me was plain wrong.

M0nica

What is a GP?

It has always meant a general practioner, In other words a famiy doctor.

In Northern Ireland we don’t have the 111 service and my practice doesn’t allow appointments to be booked ahead . The only thing to do is call at 8.30 am and get in the queue. Often by the time I reach the top of the queue all phone appointments are gone so it all has to be repeated the following day. Very frustrating but it seems to be similar in other practices so there’s no point moving to another gp.

On one occasion I phoned 111 as it was a bank holiday. I eventually had a phone consultation with a doctor who said I need to to see a doctor face to face (or more precisely face to backside). I asked what I should do if I couldn't get an appointment. He said "Go to A&E".

I was offered a telephone consultation the next day but explained that I'd already had one with a doctor on 111 so needed a face to face appointment. They still said there were no appointments available so I said OK I'll go to A&E! At this point the receptionist said "Wait a minute" and I miraculously had an appointment within the hour where a young doctor conducted an internal examination!

This was a few years ago, so I'm sure the situation is worse now. Doctor's practices don't want you going to A&E as it reflects poorly on the services they offer . It is also not ideal as it means patients with serious problems wait longer in A&E while patients are examined who should be dealt with elsewhere. However the walk-in centre I used to use closed during the pandemic. After a consultation on 111 my DD was directed to a walk-in centre 15 miles away Fortunately I was able to drive her there as she needed to have stitches removed after an operation on her broken ankle so clearly couln't drive herself. I gues some people would have to pay for a taxi!

Sadly it is becoming privatisation by the back door! Whoever ends up in power after the general election will have a difficulttask changing anything as things have deteriorated so badly. I never used to have any problem getting appointments when we moved here, probably because I didn't request them unnecessarily, but not any more. I feel very sorry for those with real health problems! Although I have long term health conditions, I get the routine appointments I need and so far have not suffered much outside this, though I'm on a waiting list for treatmen of my carpal tunnel problem. I was seen last summer and expected treatment in about 3 months. It's now more than double that. I guess I may have been lost from the system but as the condition is manageable I continue to wait until my next routine check when I shall ask them to see!

Use your Practice Nurse /Nurse Practitioner who can prescribe,refer,diagnose

Call 111 I have found them helpful. Paramedics seem to see patients at my surgery now rather than a GP. I just dread being ill. A & E is heaving locally here with problems that a G P used to deal with. Shocking situation the system is broken.

I get fed up with having to listen to a woman telling me about Covid 19 for almost 2 minutes before the call even starts, and then if there are more than 20 calls waiting, the call is cut offand the rigmarole starts all over again.
How long is Covid going to be used to cover up the state of GP's (or lack of) and the NHS in general?

Our health centre is brilliant. I can’t praise them enough. Everyone is helpful and pleasant and there is no problem seeing a doctor.

Did you get to see someone trwavelasfar? I hope so.

Same here, I just get fobbed off.
I ended up in A&E and had to waste their time on what they considered a minor problem

knspol we have a GP like that at our practice. He wears filthy trainers like he has just been digging his garden, trousers hanging off his backside because he can’t wear a belt as he is so fat.

Even worse at the hospital during a very long wait we saw 3 hugely obese Doctors. One was well over 6ft and about as wide. He came down the corridor hardly able to walk as his legs were so fat that he had to walk with his feet about 3 feet apart.

What gets me is - why on earth has it all changed to nee on impossible to get an appointment???? Why ?

Why is it that obviously some GP practices are well organised and accessible, whereas some are impossible. Mine is good, yesterday I took my brother (he’s rather vague) to his GP and it was fine.

Escaped from the jokes thread

SporeRB

Signed up to NHS online using this link
www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/gps/online-health-and-prescription-services/

Log in just after midnight to book a GP appointment through services and it will show the dates available to book your GP appointment for that week.

So far, I managed to book two telephone appointments with my GP who worked part time to discuss my blood test results within a day or two using this method.

If I follow the normal route, it takes 3 weeks to see my GP.

My GP surgery has disabled this function in the NHS app. Also when you log onto Econsult at 8am, there is a note saying all appointments are booked and I should try again tomorrow. It took me two weeks to get through to get a doctor to call me back with blood test result.

I find seeing either of the paramedics at the surgery rather dramatic. I don’t know if it is how they were originally trained but they seem to go for the worse case scenario first or they go off to speak to the GP anyway.
I reckon we should just go back to the turn up and wait system, so easy and would completely cut out no shows.