Waiting time to see a doctor at your surgery...

Joined
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Oh indeed, one of their questions was, 'is it a serious'. Now, me not having a medical degree, I therefore having no idea if a cough with pain (muscle?) down my side, and a metalic taste (when coughing), which can be caused by blood, is 'serious' or not...

I'm phoning their duty doctor... It's daft! Eight days!

Why that makes my blood boil, mah left arm go numb also I taste copper!

*thud!*
 
Associate
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With my local surgery, you have to ask for an appointment on the day you want to see the doctor, but 99.9% of the time they don't have any appointments for that day left. But do they give you an appointment for the next day or the day after? No, its not their policy. They tell you to phone up again at 8am the next day to see if they've got any for that day, which they never do...so on it goes...
 
Caporegime
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I have no idea if it's serious or not... That what the GP needs to do. NHS Direct cannot really diagnose from symptoms, so said to talk/see my GP... :confused:

If you're worried then I would have told the receptionist that it was serious! A non-serious appointment for me would be something like my annual asthma review being due.

Did you tell NHS Direct that you couldn't get an appointment for 8 days?
 
Associate
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GPs are utterly useless.

Too True. I went through months and months of crippling back, leg and neck pain, so much so that I was in tears most days and couldn't manage sitting at my work desk for more than 10 minutes at a time. Then my hair started falling out.

I saw my doctor 4 times about it, telling him that it must be something to do with the pills I was taking at the time. He completely dismissed my thoughts (I'm not a doctor after all, I don't know what I'm talking about!) so he just gave me pain killers, which didn't work. After the 4th visit and the same discussion, I decided to take myself off the pills.

And whadda ya know, all my pain vanished in a matter of weeks :rolleyes:
 
Soldato
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Chatteris
Our local sugery has two systems:

Doors open at 9:00am (queuing usually starts at 8:30).
You go in, register and you can see either the first available doctor (quickest option) or if you specifically want to see "your" doctor then you'll be given the first available appointment - never had to wait more than an hour.

Alternatively phone up in the morning and get an appointment in the afternoon.

The only time I've failed to get an appointment same day is if I hapen to need a doctor on a Tuesday (my doc isn't in on a Tuesday) as due to my medical history it is a lot easier to see the same doctor each time.

Over the past 18 months I've had some pretty bad things happen to me: pneumonia, PE, diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome, found to have hypothyroidism however the NHS have been top notch.
My GP was excellent and did all she could and once she was out of her depth she passed it on.
I'm under two specialists at two seperate hospitals - again my out-patient experience has been amazing.
I've aso had a couple of stays in hospital, two seperate hospitals and once more my stays were perfect.

The NHS comes under a lot of fire - I'm pleased to say my experience with them has been great.
 
Soldato
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Sheffield
Our surgery is exactly the same Stoofa, run's a drop-in session in the early hours of the morning but there is no warning on how long you may be waiting, or who will see you.
 
Soldato
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Jesmond
I've rung up at lunchtime and had an appointment same day, if you don't mind which doctor you see. If I want to see a particular doctor than usually 2 days wait, unless he's on holiday :p
 
Soldato
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London
GP where I live is pretty good. Next day appointment. Hospital though - different matter. Had an issue with my wrist and GP said to get it x-rayed. Got that same day, but got the results only 5 days later. Looked clean but was still hurting, so GP referred me to a hospital. few days later, appointment letter came for what I thought was 2 weeks later. Ok, fair enough, not toooo bad. though the thumb moving up and down was something to be concerned about :p

day before the appointment I look more closely at the letter, and find out that it was 2 weeks and 1 YEAR later. I mean c'mon, that's just ridiculous! Just because it's not an emergency doesn't mean I can afford to wait a year for it.

I called up to confirm, and it was a year later :p admittedly they tehn called me back 3 hours later and said they forgot to notice that GP marked it urgent so I could come in 2 days time. but that not withstanding, if something isn't 'urgent' people can afford to wait a year for it?
 

wnb

wnb

Soldato
Joined
27 Feb 2004
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I was fed up with the attitude of my doctors reception, being arsey asking intimate details about why you are phoning when its none of their busines. Unable to book appointments ie set time and date next week. If you dont phone before a certain time in the morning you cant get an appointment.

In the end I changed from a town doctor to a village doctor and they are fantastic the staff are great, very polite and aways happy to see you. Never once have they said 'sorry but that day is full' Can see them the same day regardless of what time I call and can book appointments for this week, next week or the week after etc and to top it off I can book appointments via email and can even book appointments via an nhs portal to see a specialist once the doctor has given his ok to do so.

The whole experiance of the new doctors was just amazing compared to what I had to put up with in town.
 

daz

daz

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Bucks
Went to our village surgery at 10am one day because i'd had a sore throat for a couple of weeks, wasn't registered so they gave me some forms and got me an appointment for 1pm the same day. :cool:

The NHS is remarkably good value for money when you compare it to other countries worldwide. We're pretty much slap bang in the middle for government spend per person on healthcare (we spend even less than the USA government does) and we're pretty much slap bang in the middle in terms of performance.
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It's not perfect by any means, there are many things that could improve the system, but it's not bad. :)
 

Deleted member 651465

D

Deleted member 651465

I don't think I've made an appointment for my local surgery. Ever.

I usually ring up at 8am (when they open) and book something in the emergency hour if I feel it's worth a visit to the GP.

Last week I needed injections for our impending honeymoon and I managed to get an appointment with the practice nurse the next day (my choice).
 
Caporegime
Joined
8 Jul 2003
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30,062
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In a house
Last time i phoned the docs for an appointment, they couldn't give me one for about 2x weeks, so i told em it didn't matter, as id either be dead or cured in that ******* time.

Was a good few years ago like, so its probably increased to about a ******* year now.
 
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