GP Wait Times - your experience please….

An unpopular opinion here but based on experience of friends who are Drs and professionals I have dealt with.

I know 3 girls who are GPs who see patients 3 half days a week, 2 run facial filler and botox clinics in salons in town and in other counties 2 other days. One does an online skincare clinic prescribing anti-aging prescription treatments for a UK service for a 4th days work. They are home to pick their kids up from school and have a nice lifestyle. It is a different life than the old school GPs who did a 9-5 ,5 days and arguably did have very little home work balance as a result. In my GP clinic all GPs work 3 days and have other interests other days - one runs private menopause clinic in another area 2 days for example. The issue of GP availability is bigger than clinics being over-run. It does happen, but we also need to address the fact that some GPs need to be available for GP work a greater amount of time than they currently are.

It was you who said being nice to the receptionists will win you their favour.

Because you're assuming I am the dick here, right? That I must be giving the poor receptionist staff a hard time? Well, you're wrong. I've never been anything but respectful and polite when dealing with them, even when I have felt like ripping into them. Because I know what I'm dealing with. And you've just unwittingly confirmed that not all appointments are given out fairly.

So yes, I'd much prefer an online booking system. 100%. Then I would only need to have minimal interaction with the particular nasty power-tripping wans at my current GP surgery. And that is what they are, no matter how you choose to defend them without even knowing them or having dealt with them. I've seen it an overheard it with my own ears.

Hopefully, when I do find a new GP (🤞) they will have an online booking system.

I was in waiting room about two years ago, speakerphone in reception was on and they were playing back voice messages, some very intimate details being relayed to all and sundry, name, date of birth, address and full details of complaint and likely cause. Distracted myself not to hear it all, but everyone else could loud and clear.

We should hopefully not judge our “real life” behaviour based on here, otherwise I’d be terrified of going near the dentist for fear of having my mouth de-dentified by Dav 🤣.

Same! I booked the appointment yesterday, was there a few minutes before the appointment time, seen immediately, diagnosis and two injections given, repeat appointment booked for Friday, and out the door by 11:30 and home with a take away coffee in less than an hour. Couldn't ask for a better service, and extremely pleasant staff on the desk who are all qualified or student veterinary nurses.

maybe you and I use same practice 🤣 sounds like it tbh. Doc is absolutely lovely, have known him since my teens, and he was taken on by the original lovely doc, the real old style family GP, who used to see me as a child. My pharmacy said discretely that there were real problems getting through the gate-keeping, which proved very problematic in that more than once they needed to question a potentially very serious matter in an urgent prescription and would be told no doc available.

The booking page provides a space for reason for appointment and the homepage suggests that this has clinical oversight and approval.

Though there would need to be a good reason for a surgery to refuse an appointment, when the patient knows one is technically available. Or at least one would hope so.

I just had a look at some GP practices online that have online booking services. I found appointments available in less than two days, and multiple time options in one of the practices I'm on the waiting list for. 🤞

Maybe so! Don't even get me started on the numbers of times they've messed up my repeat prescription.

Luckily I have an absolutely brilliant pharmacist.

Good thing your brother went to the hospital, that can be deadly if not attended. It would have had to be dealt with at a hospital anyway, but an astute GP would have sent him in a timely manner, lessening the risk of a bad outcome.

On the one hand you have the GP primary service for things can be judged clinically and solved with a prescription, advice or a referral. Done in a timely fashion, keeps people out of hospital, and directs those to the hospital who really need it.

Then you have the big building intended to deal with illness that is more serious &/or more complicated, which has tons of diagnostics (though not nearly enough as I discovered, being held in a bed simply for a scan) and is in a position to save you if you are immediately in danger of deterioration.

There’s not enough in-between kind of service, where an xray & ultrasound can be done by your GP service or sharing with another few broader area GPs. A hospital should be last resort.

There are a hell of a lot of female docs, and this is what you get.

(I’m female)

I will get my coat now 🤣