Doctors appointments .

mickyflinn

mickyflinn

mickyflinn

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So went to make an appointment at the doctor's and the earliest I can be seen is in 3 weeks time , is this normal ?

What's the longest You've waited for an appointment ?
 
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It is normal. You have to be on the phone at 8am and hope you beat everyone else for todays appointments, otherwise you are out of luck.

I’ve had a lot of chronic health problems over the past few years and I’ve had to spend a large part of my savings seeing doctors privately because the NHS is barely able to cope. 12+ months waiting lists when dealing with a chronic daily health condition isn’t much fun.

I’ve had to literally beg to see a doctor in person, only managed it once in two years.

It’s all gone very wrong.
 
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Used to be able to book an appointment online, usually 3-4 weeks away. They've stopped that now so unless you get lucky ringing up you aren't seeing a gp.
 
mickyflinn said:
So went to make an appointment at the doctor's and the earliest I can be seen is in 3 weeks time , is this normal ?

What's the longest You've waited for an appointment ?
Click to expand...

Yup,

Our local surgery opens phone lines at 8:30, at which point if you know the right options to press you can get an appointment, if you dont then haha, good luck try again tomorrow.

Emergency appointments are always available same day, to be fair to them. But pre-bookable appointments are only ever done by the doctors now if they want to see you in person specifically to follow up, pre-booking a normal appointment is not available anymore.

I can understand why theyve moved to this system, youd go in and they had a "missed appointment" counter for the previous month, and it was never in double digets. Always 100+ missed appointments per month, shocking really.
 
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mickyflinn said:
So went to make an appointment at the doctor's and the earliest I can be seen is in 3 weeks time , is this normal ?

What's the longest You've waited for an appointment ?
Click to expand...
We can't book appointments at our GP anymore, only phone for an appointment on the day. Absolutely ridiculous in so many ways.
 
Mill Bank Surgery in Stafford.

Signed up in 2002. I could get a same-day GP appointment until 2017.

2018 onwards, you call at 07:59, be put on hold for 10 minutes, then to be told that all appts are gone for the day. Repeat the next day and the next day afterwards. Online (Patient Access) doesn't allow bookings in advance.

To be fair though, I can still get appointments with Pharmacy and practice nurse in 2023. Just not a GP.
 
Turn up at the surgery at 8.30a.m and speak to the receptionist anything else you're wasting your time and last time they made me wait an eternity before they looked up from their desk. That'll get you an appointment with a clinician or a nurse but not a GP, I havn't seen one of those since the pandemic I've heard they exist but I'm not sure.
 
My GP uses Ask My GP - no phone queue, get prioritised appointment depending on details - don't normally have to wait weeks unless it is something minor.
 
Mine works on econsult, if it’s nothing serious or urgent you’re looking at weeks.

However last week I had an infected finger, did the econsult and it said I needed an urgent appointment, I called back and they put me on triage and I had a telephone consultation within 2 hours and got prescriptions etc.

To be honest, I get the impression that you’re basically just not going see anyone for weeks, unless you have an ongoing problem that’s serious or going to quickly get serious.
 
everywhere is different, for example they closed down a gp surgery 13 miles away from me so all the patients were sent to my local gp surgery 3 miles away.

now the very small team of Dr`s have 10K patients and the place seems to be full every time i go there.

waiting times used to superb but are far longer now. Considerably better than 3 weeks i admit but the times are all over the place and if you want to see a specific Dr then there is a waiting list. If you want to see any random Dr available then much quicker.
 
My GP practice has open surgery each morning. Ring at 8am on the dot and get an appt that morning. Sometimes the appt i have been given - I leave home immediately as appt is 15 min time.

Pre Covid, had to queue outside for the surgery to open at 8am. Got there at 7:30am and was 3rd in the queue. Kindle Paperwhite and music were a must to keep me occupied
 
pre covid it was a case of walking in to an open surgery, grabbing a ticket and you saw a doc , now you join a phone queue at 8.30 with more released at 2pm, tbf you usually get in the same day especially if you don't mind driving to Camelford or Delabole as they seem to share docs
 
I saw a rant on faceache from someone about not being able to get an appointment. She said they were calling on 3 different phones to try and get through ... I held fire, but pointing out that if everyone does that, then of course nobody can get through because all the lines are blocked would have been too much like common sense. No point arguing with a Karen, its like arguing with an idiot turned up to 11 :(

Not needed to see a Doctor myself in a while, but I don't have issues when arranging nurse appointments for things like BP, blood tests etc. Our surgery is like others described here though, the 8am farce in full force, but they do e-consults now and that's worked pretty well when my wife has needed an appointment.
 
I just go on the NHS app, and book the appointment same or next day on there. Don't waste my time contacting the doctors directly.
 
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