If only 😏

We have similar probs, an online service that keeps having technical difficulties so now we have gone back to ringing at 8am and taking our chances, usually the queue is already numbering over 15 so there is no chance of an appointment. And when we do get an appointment is someone new everytime and the last young man wasn’t even a doctor, he apologised halfway through saying he would ask the GP in the next room for advice. I thought this was odd so asked the receptionist who the young man was and apparently he was a trainee practitioner. Would be nice to know these things beforehand.

We do an e-consult. It’s excellent. We are guaranteed to receive a response the same day and we do. If it’s urgent we can ask for a same day appointment. No complaints whatever from us.

Skydancer

We do an e-consult. It’s excellent. We are guaranteed to receive a response the same day and we do. If it’s urgent we can ask for a same day appointment. No complaints whatever from us.

That’s so good.
Depends where you live.
My daughter down in Brighton can get an appointment by submitting a form online the night before and she has the same doc.

Skydancer I’m with you we have an excellent service a few months ago I had an infected foot I emailed a photo and explanation at 8 am and by 11 am I had spoken to a doctor and told a prescription for antibiotics were waiting for me at the nearest pharmacy and if it didn’t improve in three days to alert them.
within 3 hours I had the tablets I needed and everything improved quickly

We also get a same day appointment if necessary

At my surgery we tend to get fobbed off with a paramedic.

We have e-consult, but since the doctor the other end is profoundly indifferent, you might as well not bother.

We too have been reduced to going privately and, like others, I wonder how people who cannot afford to manage.

In some surgeries, (not ours) they evidently have a description and qualifications for each of the titles you get passed around to see.
Doctor, nurse practitioner, medical practitioner, practice nurse, paramedic, pharmacist etc. you have to guess how long they’ve actually held any of those roles for-some look like they’re just out of 6th form, so you know, they’re not Doctors.
Some may be very experienced as whatevers. Others may not. It’s worrying when your life and health is in their hands.
I was just prescribed some medication by a medical practitioner.
When I queried the fact that the info says not to take with another medication, I’m already taking, she said she would speak to the pharmacist and call me back.
She did call me back with another suggested medication, but said before she added it to a prescription she was going to ask a doctor.
She called me back again with the information that the doctor said the second suggestion was not at all suitable and prescribed something which was suitable and didn’t clash with any of my other medications.
DH on the other hand was triaged straight to a pharmacist, who looked at the problem he was asking about, and asked my husband if he knew what it was. DH said no, and the pharmacist said he didn’t know either, but DH should try this cream. It hasn’t worked. What would you do next?

I didn’t know there were private GPS. How does that work? Do they have access to patients’ records or just what’s on NHSapp

There is a private GP in our next village and several at the local private hospital, but how the system works I am not sure.

We don't have e-consult at our GP practice. You can't go into the surgery to request an appointment. You have to phone at 8.30am and there are only emergency appointments available. You can't book a 'routine' appointment. A GP will then call you back to decide whether you need an emergency appointment or not. I've been trying to get an appointment for months - it's not what I would term as an emergency, but it's something which does need seen to, but I'm going round and round in circles trying to be seen.

I'm getting a decent service from the GP practice for a problem that arose about a fortnight ago. But I was worried on a Saturday morning and got an appointment with a private GP. It was expensive, £185 initial consultation, half an hour. In fact, that GP advised me to stay with the NHS as I'm on a 2-week pathway for consultant phone appointment, hopefully to be followed by procedure to ascertain what the problem is or might be.

We're the same NanKate. MrA has been waiting to see a consultant about his hip for 2 years now. Unless you are bleeding all over the floor - in which case you would go straight to A&E anyway - you can't get a phone appointment for 6 weeks (used to be 5). The GP will then pass you on to someone else. Haven't been able to get through at the hospital either to find out about the waiting list.

On the other hand SisInLaw in the NE had her hip operation in six months - yes, NHS - and is now doing really well. She gets a callback from her GP within 4 hours. So much for the rich South 🤔

I think our surgery is doing OK..
Both of us (my husband and I) have had same day appointments recently with a GP (not a nurse or other practice staff).

We have a much reduced doctors where they have two answers to appointment requests which are...

Go to the urgent care centre which is always v busy

Ring 111

as they are 'up to capacity' which I always think makes them sound like a warehouse rather than a doctors surgery.

I'm quite lucky really, - I'm having a call from my doctor on the 29th August. I rarely see her face to face.

I have never not been able to get a same day appt ....we just ring at 8am ....or do e consult...then you can choose telephone or face to face ....tbh ....our gp practice has improved since covid....it was all a bit hit and miss before ....its far more slick now

That’s tough NanKate really unacceptable.
Ours is a bit of a palaver, e consult and so on but you can get to see a GP the same day if they think it’s needed.Or at least prescribe something for you to collect.

My most recent GP appointment was face to face with the sort of kindly doctor we all remember, who referred me on appropriately and I have received a specialist appointment date. I don’t know how many hours this GP does at our health centre as he is a GP in private practice too. His ‘bedside manner’ was second to none.

Our practice are very good, you can contact them online describing your problem and they invariably get back quickly to give you a telephone or face-to-face appointment if necessary. They also keep in touch by text about vaccinations that are due or check-ups and blood test that are required.
They also have the services of a pharmacist. My husband takes high doses of a lot of different medications and he had a call from the pharmacist one day to discuss them. In the end he reduced the variety of pills and increased the dosage of one of them. Pharmacists are very highly trained and often know more about medications that the GP's, who may simply be using an online list to prescribe.

Ours are fantastic. No problems at all.

At a gp surgery near me, although not mine, thankfully, there were no doctors' appointments either face to face or by telephone at all the other day because several doctors were on holiday and the ones who were supposed to be covering for them were all off ill! A total disgrace.

Skydancer

We do an e-consult. It’s excellent. We are guaranteed to receive a response the same day and we do. If it’s urgent we can ask for a same day appointment. No complaints whatever from us.

It’s the same with my GP practice. It’s actually improved since they started it. I had pneumonia and stupidly waited until the Monday to contact them. But they sent a doctor to my house two hours later! I was much too ill to get to the surgery it was such a relief. They prescribed a five day course of antibiotics but I didn’t feel completely better so contacted them again, a couple of hours later I was with a nurse at the surgery who got me an extra two days worth. If our practices can do it efficiently then all practices should be able to in my opinion.

I have recently changed surgery because, for the past two years, I’ve only ever had appointments with a Nurse Practitioner or a Physician’s Associate, not once was I able to see an actual GP.

With the GP being over the internet it soon won't be a doctor that answers you but an automatic answer generated by AI.