Getting appointments...

[Caroline]

... is a nightmare and the receptionists are ina difficult position.

Having been discharged by the district nurse I am supposed to get dressings changed by the practice nurse. Last week I was told there are no appointments for a month. I told the receptionist I need the dressing changed twice a week, sorry she says no appointments for a month. My next thing is OK where can I go to get my dressing changed as the district nurses say they are only here for those who are housebound and that you have lots of appointments.

Any way I said someone was not telling the truth, it appears no where else will change the dressing for me (I had already asked the drop in centre) so I will have to take legal advice, who do I say is being negligent? Funny I got an appointment for this afternoon and when I went down I got another for Thursday and one for Thursday next week as I'm at the hospital Tuesday.

It feels like hard wok just to get basic careor an appointment. While I was getting my nurse appointments several people wanted an appointment with the doctor.only to be told there are no appointments until the new year because doctors have gone on holiday and it is only the nurses and they don't work Friday...

OK moan over, just needed to get the frustration out.

 

[Lindarose]

My surgery can usually give a same day emergency appointment but if it's routine you have around a month to wait. That's awkward because whilst something may not be an emergency it probably needs attention sooner than that.
I am always surprised when I drop in a prescription request at my surgery at how empty the waiting room seems to be. Hardly any patients. not sure how that can be! 😉

 

[grovesy]

My surgery has recently started posting a message on their website about the numbers not turning up to appointments.

 

[SadhbhFiadh]

Our surgery changed their system a little while ago. They open at 8:30, and it's a mad scramble for the Dr appointment, and when they are gone, that's it until 8:30 the next day. (Horror if it's a Friday). There are a few appointments that are pre-bookable for someone who had tried several times with no luck, or some other reason. The pre-bookable are scarce and only for the next day, never for two days hence. Nurse appointment is a little easier, but can be 2-3 weeks wait.

Having said that, I have never had difficulty, really. Just once, and I had someone call for me the next morning. And the missed appointments are nearly extinct.

 

[Ditto]

They open at 8:30, and it's a mad scramble for the Dr appointment, and when they are gone, that's it until 8:30 the next day. (Horror if it's a Friday). There are a few appointments that are pre-bookable for someone who had tried several times with no luck, or some other reason. The pre-bookable are scarce and only for the next day, never for two days hence. Nurse appointment is a little easier, but can be 2-3 weeks wait. Having said that, I have never had difficulty, really. Just once, and I had someone call for me the next morning. And the missed appointments are nearly extinct.

Our surgery is very similar. It's okay if you can remember to get up early and get through, but a bit tensing waiting and clicking redial every second till you get through...

 

[mikeyB]

It's difficult to reply to the poll, but I have. It's first come first served in the morning, appointments in the afternoon. To be honest it's never that busy either way out of season.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

I just book on line

 

[Robin]

We don't have online booking yet. Ours is either pre booked appointments in the afternoons, ( waiting time approx three weeks) or ring at 8am and keep trying til you get through (and find they've all gone) for the morning ones, but after complaints, now if you ring and they've all gone, you can have a telephone consultation, so at least if the GP thinks it's urgent having spoken to you, you will be seen.

 

[grovesy]

We don't have online booking yet. Ours is either pre booked appointments in the afternoons, ( waiting time approx three weeks) or ring at 8am and keep trying til you get through (and find they've all gone) for the morning ones, but after complaints, now if you ring and they've all gone, you can have a telephone consultation, so at least if the GP thinks it's urgent having spoken to you, you will be seen.

When i was in the surgery the other week I could hear a receptionist tell someone on the phone that all the phone consultations were gone and it was 9.30.

 

[mikeyB]

What this shows is that nobody gets it right. A simple system of first come first served used to be less efficient due to digging out fat files of notes. Now everything is available at the touch of a computer. That works well in a small practice like we have here, but there is a stoic population, which often leads to late diagnoses. Now, it's open surgery in the morning and appointments in the afternoon, which is ideal if you need to be seen in a week for a review.

A surgery that is all appointments has no way of taking up the excess of "urgent" appointments that are requested. In a multi doctor surgery, there should be one doctor every morning or afternoon doing an open surgery to deal with urgent stuff. Those calls shouldn't be fielded by a receptionist, but by the doctor, who can best decide what is urgent, far better than a receptionist can judge, and certainly far ahead of what a patient might think is urgent.

 

[trophywench]

You have to book at least a week in advance for a telephone conversation Mike - those appointments go very quickly. We can book online, first one available amongst all 8 doctors in in the New Year and with adoctor I refuse to see since she just shrugged her shoulders when I turned up and said I thought I had intermittent claudication since my leg was getting really painful after comparatively little effort and asked me what did I expect? I was literally gobsmacked when she added 'because you are diabetic so it's inevitable and there's absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Did you need to ask me anything else?'

I said 'Yes - do you mean every single diabetic everywhere in the world will have hardened arteries - cos I've never ever heard THAT in my life before - and I do believe you're talking rubbish!' and walked out.

And made another apt 'To see anyone else except, please!' on the way out.

Funnily enough, the other one examined me exactly as described on NHS Choices and I've been seeing the Cardiac Nurse Practitioner at the hospital every 6 months ever since.

And Dr Useless has been made a salaried partner at the practice .......

 

[Lilian]

For emergencies I have found my surgery very good. You will be seen the same day. For any other appointment three weeks to a month. So if it is not an emergency when you ring, by the time you get an appointment it has either become an emergency, you have seen the doctor and forgotten to cancel your appointment or you have gone to A & E because it has become even more of an emergency, ditto with appointment, or you get better again forget to cancel appointment. The only ones that turn up are those whose condition has not got better or deteriorated. If you are not sure whether it is an emergency or not you can ask for a doctor to phone you. They will phone you back that day and if they consider it an emergency will fit you in with the duty doctor. If they consider it is not an emergency they will tell you to make a routine appointment. If you think a routine appointment could be easily settled over the phone then a routine phone appointment is requested. Again maybe that is why there are not so many in the waiting room, as they are 'seen' over the phone. Mind you our waiting room is usually crowded any time of day. For the last 10 years the surgery has been trying to get bigger premises without much success. A new build has been planned but we reckon not in our lifetime. So with only a limited number of rooms they can only have a limited amount of doctors. They have even partitioned some rooms but there is only so much that can be done. However the number of patients gets larger and larger. Everything is bursting at the seems.

 

[Caroline]

Funny a few people have said there are no appointments at the surgery but the waiting room is empty when you get there. It is the same with my surgery except on the one morning when they have a drop in session

 

[graj0]

Having been discharged by the district nurse I am supposed to get dressings changed by the practice nurse.

Similar thing happened to me after surgery and where the theatre nurse had removed a large section of the skin on my leg while removing the sticking plaster used to attach something.

When I left hospital I was just told to make an appointment with my GP's nurse . . . . . . . only nobody told my surgery that that's what was expected. The same happened when I had to have some stitches removed, hospital just said got to your surgery, just nobody told the surgery. In the first case I had to use the local BMI hospital and pay for it to be done as I wasn't going to take the chance of further infection.
The second time I innocently asked if it was alright to wait for the stitches to dissolve, knowing that they weren't that type of stitch. It's a bit of a game sometimes, I just wish I had the smart answers every time. Like turning up for an appointment that turned out to be a telephone appointment, I said I'd phone from the car park on my mobile, I saw the doctor almost immediately.

 

[Deleted member 16779]

My surgery has really gone down the tubes - you could get a same day appointment if you rang early in the morning, but for the last month or so, they've brought in a phone appointment system, and it's almost impossible to get an appt the same day or even the day after. I absolutely hate the phone appointments - I'm hoping it's an experiment, but if so, universities have previously done research on the time-saving and effect on patient outcomes in the past and they don't help patients.

 

[mikeyB]

Graj0, the last reason I would go to a BMI hospital would be to reduce the risk of infection. I know three people (one now dead) who had hip replacements in a BMI hospital. All had post op infections in the operation site. The local NHS hospitals would hardly ever get infections. Mucky places, private hospitals, especially those located in converted buildings. Deep cleaning is expensive, and doesn't make a profit.

 

[grovesy]

Similar thing happened to me after surgery and where the theatre nurse had removed a large section of the skin on my leg while removing the sticking plaster used to attach something.

When I left hospital I was just told to make an appointment with my GP's nurse . . . . . . . only nobody told my surgery that that's what was expected. The same happened when I had to have some stitches removed, hospital just said got to your surgery, just nobody told the surgery. In the first case I had to use the local BMI hospital and pay for it to be done as I wasn't going to take the chance of further infection.
The second time I innocently asked if it was alright to wait for the stitches to dissolve, knowing that they weren't that type of stitch. It's a bit of a game sometimes, I just wish I had the smart answers every time. Like turning up for an appointment that turned out to be a telephone appointment, I said I'd phone from the car park on my mobile, I saw the doctor almost immediately.

When I had an arthroscopy I just booked an appointment myself for one of the nurses to have the stitches out no problem.

 

[graj0]

When I had an arthroscopy I just booked an appointment myself for one of the nurses to have the stitches out no problem.

It was probably because I'd actually had a laparotomy (burst appendix and peritonitis) and then spent ten days in hospital because of the peritonitis), then told to have the stitches removed only a few days after going home. Not enough advance notice for any appointment at my surgery.

 

[pippaandben]

Luckily we have an online booking system for urgent appts. The system opens at midnight and closes at 7am. It doesn't seem as if many patients are aware of this as whenever I have used it (once at 4.30am) there was one 10 minute appt . available from 9-12 with various Drs. Phone appts are taken after 8 or you can join the queue outside surgery waiting for the doors to open (usually about 15-20 waiting) - get appt for that morning and either wait or go shopping!! The practice is having difficulty in replacing 2 Drs who retired. One new one only lasted a week and then walked due to "pressure of work". They have currently appointed two paramedics and upgraded 2 nurses to nurse practitioners tp try and help the situation. Normal wait for blood appt 2 weeks and Drs appt 6-8 weeks, However when I fell and sliced the top of my toe off I got an appt within 2 hours - and went in early - with dressings changed every 3 days tp ensure no infection. Told in future to just turn up as I was diabetic. On release from hospital a district nurse came out the day after getting home to wound check and dress, plus 4 days later when everything had healed and was discharged BUT told to contact them if any problems with wound.

 

[grovesy]

In some areas they are also having problems recruiting and retaining practice nurses too.