Health care lottery

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For the past week, my surgery has been 'pestering me' with phone messages, a text and a call, to make a telephone appointment with one of two doctors, following a recent blood test. Rather than pestering me, why can they simply not offer me an appointment?

So I have been going online at precisely 8am, to check if there are any appointments listed for either of the two, of the dozen or so doctors. This morning I found one, just one, but it didn't indicate in the list, whether it was a phone or F2F, until you go deeper. Go deeper and whilst you are doing that, the other appointments disappear. So I grabbed it, then rang to ask them to change it for a telephone appointment - no can do, so I just cancelled it, explaining the problem with Sysmonline. I was told that Airmid on the phone did indicate the type of appointment, so I checked that out on my phone and - no it doesn't, not until you delve into it, so the very same issue.

I can understand not being able to convert a phone, to a F2F, because they probably take up more doctor time, but a F2F has to take up less time, and they are not time-critical as to when the call is made.

Like many surgeries, they don't put any appointments up until precisely 8am, then it's a frantic attempt to grab an appointment before they all are gone.

I must say, I am perfectly able to cope with the tech, but I don't know how the less able people manage at all. It seems the surgeries go well out of their way to make it difficult to even make an appointment.
 
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Why didn't you just return their call the first time they rang you?
 
Think they announced they're scrapping the 8 am rule.

Blup
 
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For the past week, my surgery has been 'pestering me' with phone messages, a text and a call, to make a telephone appointment with one of two doctors,
Why didn’t you make the appointment when they were in the phone to you?
 
Why didn’t you make the appointment when they were in the phone to you?

You cannot do that, they don't have any appointments available until the 8am lottery. They do seem to hold back a few appointments, for urgent cases, from what I gather.
 
You'll wake up feeling shoite then, only to find all appts went by 0002.............. :unsure:

I always wake up feeling shoite, until I've had my first caffeine dose :)

There has to be a better way of allocating appointments, than a 8am lottery, where the better able, more compos mentis, quicker at dialing the number in - get the appointments.
 
I'm going to ring 111 to try and get a Doppler scan because I was forcefully removed from the patient list of my leg clinic.

Rather laughably, the nurse told me that they had more patients to see and in order for them to see these patients, they had to drop me.
 
I'm going to ring 111 to try and get a Doppler scan because I was forcefully removed from the patient list of my leg clinic.

Rather laughably, the nurse told me that they had more patients to see and in order for them to see these patients, they had to drop me.

Once upon a time, you could just pop in the surgery, and wait your turn - no appointment necessary. A few years ago, I developed a tremendous blister from walking too far, in an ill-fitting pair of boots. The next day, my heels looked to be in a really bad way, so I tried to get an appointment for a second opinion, there was nothing available for weeks, so I ended up going to A&E at the hospital. Where they were none too pleased either, that a local surgery couldn't deal with it.

The trouble is, the local surgery is independent, run to make a profit. They are paid by the number of patients on their books, rather than I think the amount of work they do, the less they do, the greater the profit.
 
I got an sms to make an appt so about 10 days later, I sits there & she sits there.
"What have you come for?"
>>"I dunno, you asked me to "
"Oh" lots of keybd tapping. "Oh the physio wants me to refer you for a scan".
>>" so that takes a whole GP appt ??"
"Yes. Hmm, lets not go there"
>>"That's it then?"
"Yes, you'll get a letter".
>>(FFS) "What about the annual sugars, lipids, Vit D; are they due?
"oh yes, they are".
FFS.

The last 6 contacts I've had with the NHS have all been stupid, 3 a waste of time. They want a history but they have it in front of them on the screen but CBA to go through it. Then you tell em, and they say "what's that?". Then you explain and they say it's a long time since they did it.


If the NHS were a company, they'd be French by now.
 
Our surgery has been under 'special measures' for about a year now, I believe.

Nephrologist consultant wrote to them after my February appointment to tell the to prescribe a special antibiotic prophylaxis.
When I saw the consultant again, on Monday, she asked me if they had prescribed it. I said no and I had forgotten she was asking them to. So, I phoned them up Monday afternoon to ask why it hadn't been prescribed. They replied, "Oh, it must have been overlooked. I'll get one of the doctors to sign it off tomorrow." I said, "That's not good enough. I should have started these nearly a month ago, I need to sent over to the pharmacy today".

Appointments to see a doctor? Forget it. They told me I was due for an annual BP check in January so I tried phoning to book an appointment. I was told I don't need to come to the surgery, I just need to buy a good BP machine from the likes of Boots, take readings each morning and evening for 7 days then email them to the surgery.
As you can guess, they never got their readings, but I do have a record of the phone call and what was said, should this ever come up in the future.

Treatment from the hospital is the complete opposite. If I have a query or problem, I simply call her secretary and she soon sorts things out for me.
Occasionally they will call me out of the blue just to see how I am feeling.
 
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