Oh, don’t worry. I wouldn’t dare argue with you!
Had a nice face to face chat with doctor Roberts last week at the local surgery.
Mrs Fox rang up first thing in the morning the day before and managed to secure an appointment for me…
No receptionist is a match for Mrs Fox…
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I’d be grateful if Mrs Fox could give me some pointers.
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I’ll send her round JB…
I assure you that she’ll be perfectly safe in my hands, OGF!
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It’s you I’d be worried about JB…
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I’m going to try again in the morning, wish me luck…I’m going into work late!!! What a carry on.
sorry didn’t mean to tag you foxy it was meant for all
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YAAAAAAYYYYYY I got a face to face appointment for this aft.
I was number 19 in the call queue at 8.02am.
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Crazy innit.
Well done for persevering Queenie. 
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By coincidence i just started reading a lengthy article in Saga magazine entitled “The Doctor won’t see you now.” Receptionist is saying how much abuse they have to put up with now. It’s not right of course but if you have just spent a week in extreme pain as I have you can understand patients being on a short fuse.
It is quite normal at our large GP practice to wait 2 weeks for a face to face appointment. I refused and managed to get an appt with a paramedic who then got the GP to prescribe strong painkillers. When i look at the list of GPs at our practice, about two thirds only work part time!
The article suggests contacting the Practice Manager with your complaints about not getting a face to face appointment as NHS England wrote to GPs last May calling for face to face appointments to be restored. It also suggests that if you are not happy you could move to another practice. In our area that is not an option as there is only one practice in our catchment area.
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Some interesting points you’ve made there, Flowerpower.
When you say you cant get a face to face for a fortnight, even that would not be possible at my practice because they recently stopped taking any advance bookings. They said it was ‘temporary’ but couldnt/wouldnt give me any idea of just how long ‘temporary’ meant.
Regarding changing practices, we are not allowed to do that either, even though there are three surgeries in my area.
There are notices on the walls saying unless you are new to the area and have no doctor yet, they will not take you on. If we are already registered with a practice, we cannot change it.
As for the patients in pain so more likely to be on a short fuse, I agree, and said this a few days back.
I was left holding on for 29 mins recently, and the holding on, coupled with the worst repetive music on record, was enough to make a Saint swear!
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This is the same in our practice there are lots of doctors but most part time . The fact is GPS earn very large salaries they don’t need to work full time .
I don’t understand why there are not evening and Saturday surgeries as there used to be .
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I wondered if half of them are doing private work now, and that’s why there are only at the surgery part time? Boost their inflated income a bit more perhaps?Bit like the dental practices have done. Won’t be surprised if health becomes for private treatment only soon. Everything comes back to money somewhere along the line.
Th first thing I do when I get an appointment with a consultant is Google their name and I have found over 95% only work part time for the NHS the rest is taken up with private work usually with Spire Health which is big in Scotland.
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Same here. In our case, we have three practices within reasonable distance, but they’re all in cahoots with each other - a group of some sort!
I believe it will. In fact, it already is the route of choice for those who can afford it.
I have to admit that I have done that - seen a neurologist and later a cardiologist privately, which was the only way I could get the wheels turning. I make no apologies for doing that.
We are, in so many ways, becoming more and more like America where the two-tier system is first class (private) and third class (state), certainly with regard to General Practice.
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Here we have a new generation of GPs, Islamic girls, googling your symptoms, then asking you for your advice, then emailing you’re chosen pharmacy. Next day, pharmacist gives a hopeless shrug, poor patient visits clinic again to find there’s been some mistake: the clinic’s inhouse pharmacist doesn’t agree with what’s been prescribed.
I must say that’s rather worrying. It suggests that many of our doctors are part-time (or retired) and the only ones available are incompetent!
I’ve said before, the UK is heading toward becoming a third-word nation…
and it’s all our own fault, or at least the fault of our successive PMs.
Test.
I’ve just been to an appointment at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital.
I was expecting a lengthy wait, as that is the norm every time I’ve been in the past. Today was typical at 2 1/4 hours, but that included several tests.
What annoyed me, though, was the pharmacy: Lloyds. They have always been very slow, but today’s experience was exceptionally poor. I arrived at the pharmacy at 5pm and was told that they would need 40 minutes to fill the prescription. How long does it take to read the prescription, pick up a bottle of eye drops from the shelf, sign a form and hand the bottle to me?
To make matters worse, it took them 70 minutes, so they didn’t produce the goods until ten past six, and they close at six, AND there were still about 25 other patients still waiting for their medicines.
Tomorrow, I’m going to write to the hospital and politely suggest that they permit the issue of open prescriptions so that we can take them to our own pharmacies.
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