Has anyone else encountered this problem
Please let me make this clear I think both nurses and doctors working in the NHS are doing a brilliant job. And I am in no doubt that this problem as set out below has nothing to do with them some efficiency manager throught this one up.

You need to see a doctor, the problem you have might not be urgent, but all the same you need to see a doctor. I have a very manageable condition which means every six months or so I need to see a doctor so they can request the blood test, which means then I need to see a nurse to take my blood, then after a week I need to go back and the doctor will give more of the same or a different dose of pills.

I have found this problem has also occurred when I have been genuinely sickly.

You ring the doctor’s surgery mid-morning. You are told all the appointments have been taken, if it is urgent you can come in to the surgery after 5 pm and wait – but there is no guarantee you will see a doctor. You think to yourself I am ill or this is not an urgent matter, either way don’t want to go all the way down to the doctor's surgery to play doctor roulette.

You ask can I make an appointment for tomorrow morning. You are told No. You can only make an appointment for that day. You can not book an appointment beyond the day that you ring. You need to try again tomorrow the phone lines are open from 8 am.

If you are sick you might mind ringing back at 8 am. Only the problem being that there is only 1 phone line and you and all the other people who missed out the day before are ringing too eventually you get through and there is one appointment available but it is in just 10 mins time (but I live more than 10 mins from the doctors surgery) or you can come in to the surgery after 5 pm and wait…..

Not to mention the hassle is caused at my work I would inform my manager 2 weeks in advance that I will attempting to make a doctors appointment and might need to disappear at a moments notice any time between 8 am and 5 pm in the next 2 weeks and then again about week later the.

Seeing the nurse is no problem, I have booked an appointment 2 weeks in advance.

PS. Male nurses are well sexy.
(Free pens 100, 101, 102 is still counting on, Wed 17 Mar 2010, 11:45, 7 replies)

My surgery is ace;
it's a 24-hour line manned by a robot, and one of the things it can do is give you the next available appointment with any doctor.
( Bob Todd whee, Wed 17 Mar 2010, 11:56, closed)

That is frustrating
Surely there's a body you can complain to as the practice manager who implemented that rule is clearly a fuckwit. At the very least you should just be allowed to book an appointment with the nurse rather than having to go through the GP.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 17 Mar 2010, 11:56, closed)

No surgery ever does this the same way
I used to belong to a GP's practice that had two doctors but you were only allowed to register with one of them and see only that one doctor. The trouble was that both doctors worked at two surgeries and you could only register at one of the surgeries so that meant you could only book an appointment to see your doctor for half the week. Usually you would have to book for the week after or further.

Oddly one of the doctors from that practice was recently in the Evening Standard justifying his enormous salary.

I left that surgery partly because of this and partly because my doctor turned out to be homophobic at about the same time as I turned out to be gay.

The next surgery was brilliant because they had five doctors and no appointment system. Shame I moved house a bit later and had to go somewhere else.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Wed 17 Mar 2010, 12:21, closed)

I sympathise
I have had similar trouble when once I had to book a double appointment (they make you book two 7 min sessions if you have more than one thing to talk about). The receptionist (a very human arsey one at that) was so rude to me when I requested my double that I was compelled to complain to the local PALS network as I was quite upset over it all.

Lovely PALS got me an appointment guaranteed for the next day at a convenient time with my favourite doc. Had to complain first though :/
(The Little Fawn, Wed 17 Mar 2010, 12:23, closed)

My old doctors were exactly the same
Call them at 8 and if you're lucky get an appointment for 5pm. Used to drive me potty. My new surgery has walk-in clinics twice a day as well as appointments and from my experiences with it so far, it seems to work. I do wish they had a touch-screen for appointment arrivals like the old surgery though because if you're due to see the doc when it's the start of the walk-in it can take ages.
( Poppy The Platypus was abducted by an army of toast soldiers on, Wed 17 Mar 2010, 13:00, closed)

my doctor is the same
with the added twattery of the receptionist leaving the answering machine on till 9 a.m. whilst they have their coffee. you can't leave a message, it just says to ring after 8 a.m.
shouting down the phone that "it IS after 8 a.m, you robotic fuckwit!" really doesn't get you anywhere.
the only good things are that, as this system has pissed so many patients off, they've transferred to the new surgery a mile away and freed up appointments, plus the surgery is literally a 30-second walk from my house
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Wed 17 Mar 2010, 18:59, closed)

Yep, very common
when targets where brought in to track length of time between making an appointment and seeing the doc the nhs cunts came up with this wheeze to fiddle the figures. They couldn't give a flying fuck how difficult it is for a working person to access primary health care, and the NHS is riddled with them.
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Wed 17 Mar 2010, 19:16, closed)