Satisfied with your GP practice?

I'm not sure there is a normal anymore.

It's not unheard of. I waited over two weeks for my last gp appointment (and I hadn't specified it must be a gp who saw me)

I have recently made a Doctor's appointment. The earliest appointment I could make is 3 weeks away! Is this normal? When I said that the appointment was a long time to wait when I was in pain,she said Go to A and E then ! is this normal ?

I've only consulted an actual GP once in the past four years at our practice, I've had various blood tests and flu jabs, health check ups with the practice Nurse, they seem pretty good, I'm not sure how easy it is to get an appointment these days. . My husband has recently suffered with something called De Quervains which is a condition affecting the tendons in the hand, particularly painful at night.Rang the GP for a steroid injection, had to wait a few weeks, the injection didn't really work. Meeting up with one of his golfing pals a few weeks later, who is a recently retired hand surgeon, OH describing where the injection went in, "that's no good it's the wrong place" said his friend. . My husband was too wuss to go back and tell the GP that, so he went off and had the injection done privately which has rectified the problem. How does a layperson tell a doctor they're not doing something correctly?, not easy!

Our GP service is very good. I can not remember when I last went. Hubby on on some meds for high cholesterol (heredity) My only gripe, last 3 holidays while on the beach my phone pinged and I always check in case it is family back home. It was the GP to say book your flu, covid, shingles vaccine!! Good grief, leave me alone. I went in the sea for a swim!

My GP service is excellent and I have always been seen same day. They have an evening sit and wait service for urgent cases if all appointments are gone.
Only had a problem once with a locum Dr who despite me telling him I don't benefit from Ventalin at all during a chest infection sent me to the nurse for a ventalin nebuliser. Returned to Dr and O2 levels were exactly the same after it, so then he gave me the antibiotics and steroids I'd asked for. Waste of half an hour but very thorough. All the regular Drs and receptionists are lovely. Very lucky here in Devon.

I made an appointment several weeks ago because the numbness in my hands/arms and legs/feet is getting steadily worse and causing lots of problems. The earliest I could get was for tomorrow - about 4 weeks. I have been hanging on in there as it worsens and hoping to get some action. Surgery have just rang to say the GP is ill and the first appointment I can have with any GP is in 2 weeks. I am really struggling with this - my balance is impaired and I am clumsy. I had been hoping to at least set some investigations in train.

I am pretty gutted really. It is a reflection on the state of the service. The poor woman can't help being ill but there must be some way of getting help sooner.

Allira

I've come to the conclusion that ours is a Nurse Practice as all the GPs seem to have either left or are invisible.

Whatever the problem, if we phone for an appointment, it seems to be with a nurse or nurse practitioner and the results are unsatisfactory, often necessitating another appointment.

Same here.
We haven't seen a GP for years. My DH was not diagnosed with a chest infection a couple of months ago, he tends to suffer from them so he told the nurse practitioner this, but was told it was just an upper respiratory virus that didn't require antibiotics. He got much worse in a few short days so we returned and saw a different nurse practitioner because even they don't stick around and are just locums, this time he finally was diagnosed with a chest infection and treated accordingly.

Allira

I've come to the conclusion that ours is a Nurse Practice as all the GPs seem to have either left or are invisible.

Whatever the problem, if we phone for an appointment, it seems to be with a nurse or nurse practitioner and the results are unsatisfactory, often necessitating another appointment.

Much the same here.

I've come to the conclusion that ours is a Nurse Practice as all the GPs seem to have either left or are invisible.

Whatever the problem, if we phone for an appointment, it seems to be with a nurse or nurse practitioner and the results are unsatisfactory, often necessitating another appointment.

Re my post yesterday I have written to the office of national statistics about their satisfaction rate of nearly 100% and will report back with their response.

all we can do is order repeat meds which takes a minimum of 3 days to process.

You are luckier than you realise, *NinjaNan18", ours takes a fortnight! I am on medication which you can only order a week before you run out as it is a "controlled" drug. At the moment I get it through the local Health Centre whilst they sort out the correct dose but I wonder what will happen when I have it prescribed through the GP.

I agree with ftm420. Im very concerned for myself, friends and family at the dire state of our local GPs. We had a GP partners running our practice, now that's dwindled to one GP, so he merged with 2 other practices but most days there isn't a GP in the entire building, just nurse prescriber and a physio. Since Covid receptionists triage and if you are lucky you see the nurse prescriber. My relative ended up with advanced bowel cancer and a stoma as he kept going back and fore complaining about bleeding for over 6 months but was told he had piles! The GP surgery has an app but they have opted out allowing us patients to make appointments, view tests results etc on it and all we can do is order repeat meds which takes a minimum of 3 days to process.

Our GP is great. Always get triage call within a couple of hours, often much sooner. Appointments to see GP available if necessary. Fabulous receptionists, too.

We do regular surveys from ONS and according to them 98% of respondents are happy with their surgery.
That really surprises me because we are not happy abd many others I have spoken with are not happy either.

The most interesting thing is the link to find the response about your surgery.
For ours, the receptionists do well, getting appointments does poorly both of which I’d agree with.
The number of surveys sent out, just for our Practice represents a very small fraction of the patients on file.
The number completed makes a nonsense of the results claimed.
What’s actually true is exemplified by what you see on GN.
Your view of your practice depends on how you’ve been treated, no matter how good average or poor the claims/results of the survey.

You get better results with honey than vinegar.

You certainly do MaggsMcG but sometimes it is hard when you are in pain or terribly worried, you've been on the phone waiting for an answer for nearly an hour and they tell you that you need to ring back at 8am tomorrow as there are no more emergency appointments nor can they book a routine one until tomorrow. I can see why people are frustrated.

I think mine is good. However some people don't. Some have changed GP surgery. Then again some have changed from another Surgery to ours. It depends on what you expect and sometimes how you treat the people working there. You get better results with honey than vinegar. 😂

Sadly our GP service is not good. Whether they are on a go slow still I don’t know but you have to ring at 8 am to try and get an appointment. Receptionists grill you and then the GP will phone you before you can get an appointment. Only one part time female doctor that you have to get permission to see from own GP. Only consistent services are annual blood tests with nurses, routine prescriptions and MSK self referral. Very rarely see my GP because it’s too difficult. When you do get to see him, I have been kept waiting for up to 30 mins. Wish I could change practice.

Mollygo

Babs03

Our GP practice is terrible.
Haven’t seen or spoken to an actual GP in years, is always a practice nurse or assistant physician, and we can’t even get an appointment to see them half the time.
Where do all the satisfied patients live?
Down here in the South East most practices are awful.
😳

No idea, but they must exist, because a survey says so.

They definitely exist, some of them are even on this thread?

Babs03

Our GP practice is terrible.
Haven’t seen or spoken to an actual GP in years, is always a practice nurse or assistant physician, and we can’t even get an appointment to see them half the time.
Where do all the satisfied patients live?
Down here in the South East most practices are awful.
😳

No idea, but they must exist, because a survey says so.

Lesley60

I don’t believe this survey as I think most people are dissatisfied with the way GP practicing is now being run, having to wait over a month for an appointment and then only if the non medically trained receptionist deems it necessary, how dare an admin worker decide who should see a doctor and how long they have to wait.
This is dangerous and the sooner the GMC realises this the better, obviously I can only speak of the area in which I live
I have waited five months for a GP to refer me to a spinal clinic which a surgeon requested be done and despite contacting the GP regarding this it still hasn’t been done.

I just now go over the gps head & ring my gynaecologists secretary to book my Botox for my bladder- done this for the last four sessions.

Pearl30

GP practice is a misnomer. Don’t think GPs exist anymore; we certainly don’t get to see one. If it’s something above a nurse’s qualifications we are told by the receptionist or a text to go straight to A&E! The nurses have taken over all the GPs rooms, the admin staff decide whether you’re worthy of seeing the nurse. So I wish I had had the chance to complete the survey, but maybe my views would have been excluded as clearly bad experiences are not what they want heard based on what an earlier poster on GN said.
Our surgery used to be excellent in the 90s with appointments possible within 1-3 hours (sometimes told ‘pop down now’) and you saw the same (assigned) GP so they knew your history and there was no need to repeat yourself time and again. Not only that they knew your family and enquired after them too. All the GPs there were excellent practitioners with great bedside manner. For those of us old enough to remember it means today’s service is very poor in comparison. Wish I could be more positive. 🤷‍♀️

Absolutely like ours in the 80s/90s our Gp was a great looking Indian guy & a bit of a ladies man, I would go & see him, I would end up counselling him 🤣 he would be sat with his end in hands, rough off the drink. Died in his 50s of heart attack not surprised as his ashtray was full to the brim.
You could get anything you needed off him- never told you to buy it at the chemist.

Our GP practice is terrible.
Haven’t seen or spoken to an actual GP in years, is always a practice nurse or assistant physician, and we can’t even get an appointment to see them half the time.
Where do all the satisfied patients live?
Down here in the South East most practices are awful.
😳

I’ve been with my practice for over 40 years but it has really deteriorated in the last few years. I had a text asking me to make a routine telephone appointment with a gp. The earliest they could do was in 4 weeks time and I had to keep the whole day free as they couldn’t give me a time! It was related to high blood pressure and the gp was talking about heart attacks and strokes - I could have been dead and buried by the time I got that phone call!

You have to follow their system but this week my DH needed to be seen urgently and he was. It is a different world now with everything !!