My brilliant GP surgery

archangel

archangel

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my GP surgery opens at 7 am and closes at 6.30 pm....we even have a pharmacy on site to save us going into the centre of the village.....I normally can have an appointment within a day or two for non emergency and same day if I feel it is an emergency.....

What is everyone's else's experiences like with their local surgery? Do the NHS live up to expectation? Or have you opted to go private?
 
"Yes Sir, we have an appointment available in 14 days" :(
 
"That must be hellishly painful! Why didn't you come in immediately last week?"

"Because your receptionist left me in no doubt this was the earliest appointment available!"
 
Mine are pretty good, if its an emergency I'll normally get a same day appointment. If its not a day or two or slightly longer for a specific GP
 
I can't really comment, because most of what I know about the NHS refers to my wife's experiences, but the service seems to be reasonable in her area. She did have to wait months for a physiotherapist appointment once, although the same physio could see her privately that week!

SA doesn't have a national health system. Government hospitals are free, if you pass the means test, but are pretty diabolical. GPs private rates are not bad (about £25, although the conversion is misleading because the rand is so weak), and my/our doctors are excellent. You can normally get an appointment the same day if necessary, Saturday mornings are first come first served, and one of them is always there on a Sunday morning. X Rays and most lab tests are done straight away, and you just go back to the doctor with the results.

A big plus, for me, is that I have my usual doctor's home and cellphone numbers, and he's quite prepared to take calls if I feel that it can't wait until surgery hours.
 
archangel said:
my GP surgery opens at 7 am and closes at 6.30 pm....we even have a pharmacy on site to save us going into the centre of the village.....I normally can have an appointment within a day or two for non emergency and same day if I feel it is an emergency.....

What is everyone's else's experiences like with their local surgery? Do the NHS live up to expectation? Or have you opted to go private?
Click to expand...


A very similar experience to you.

A few weeks back I picked up my Wife from singing for fun run by a local Dementia charity (she has Alzheimer's) at 3pm. She was complaining of a bad earache. I got her in the car for the 20-30 min journey home and dialled the surgery. The receptionist said she would speak to one of the Drs. Before I got home I had a return call offering me an appointment at the end of the surgery that day. Can't complain about that.

Ken
 
I only live in a small village so our surgery is open in the morning and the same staff and GPs have an afternoon surgery in the next village.

As long I call at 08:30 then I'll normally get an appointment the same day.

That said - the minor ailments service up here means you can often bypass the doc..

Everyone can go to their pharmacist for advice or to buy a medicine for a minor illness or ailment.
But this is a new NHS service for people, including children, who don't pay prescription charges. It means that if your pharmacist thinks you need it then they can give you a medicine on the NHS without you having to pay for it. It will also save you making an appointment with your GP simply to get a prescription.
 
Ours is fantastic.

Same day, 5 minute, on the day appointments if you call before 10am. If I miss the 10am deadline and it relates to the kids they usually get someone to call me. The 15 minute appointments are usually available within a few days and once a week they open until 7:30pm.

Such a shame not all health centres are the same.
 
My surgery opens at 8 a.m. If I want to make an appointment then I have to phone them dead on 8 a.m. - which would be fine if everyone else wasn't doing exactly the same thing...

I have diabetes, so need to see the diabetes specialist, she's pretty good and only actually messed up to the point that I ended up as an emergency hospital admission once. Problem is, she doesn't seem to be full time and once I actually manage to get through to make an appointment, it can take weeks to see her.

If possible, I see the diabetic nurse instead, but she is in even more demand and it can take months to get an appointment to see her. But, in an emergency, she will see me immediately and has got me out of very serious trouble twice.

The problem as I see it is that it is run as a business, not as a service. And it serves the staff, not the patients.
 
Very good here, you can get an app pretty much that day or a phone conversation call back and then they can get you in if its needed, last year when i had yet another prolapse disc i couldn't drive to get my medication and had nobody to go for me, they rallied round and got their delivery driver to bring it out to the house
 
Our practice is fantastic at any one time it employs 6-7 GPs it has several nurses plus a dispensing pharmacy, I have had home visits if needed and with regards to my dad he has been very ill over the last year, thankfully better now and the doctors have been great with regular home visits etc
 
If we want to see our own doctor there are unlikely to be appointments available with in three weeks.
To see any doctor two weeks would be normal.
To see a student doctor usually one week
If it is an emergency you are passed to a triage nurse for the gestapo grilling.
and if the chances of death in the next 24 hours is a likely outcome, she will let you wait in the surgery for a gap in the list, or be seen at the end of surgery.
As we only have 7 or 8 doctors we just have to take what is offered.
However If and when you see one they are very good.
 
Our surgery has adopted a new system. Phone the surgery - receptionist makes an appointment for a doctor to call you back. After discussing the problem with you over the phone and the doctor feels it necessary then an appointment is made for you to attend the surgery.

According to the receptionist young, busy, working people find this system great. Some oldies on the other hand do have problems with it. I have yet to try it out.

AL
 
If we introduced a £5 free for an initial appointment it wouldn't be too long for the queues to reduce....they should also try that system in A&E.....
 
archangel said:
If we introduced a £5 free for an initial appointment it wouldn't be too long for the queues to reduce....they should also try that system in A&E.....
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its a good idea until the first person with a nasty contagious disease can't afford to see their GP.
 
archangel said:
If we introduced a £5 free for an initial appointment it wouldn't be too long for the queues to reduce....they should also try that system in A&E.....
Click to expand...

Doubt it would have any affect at all other than to increase people moaning about wait time as they now pay x directly for the service, my sister is a Managing Nurse at a large A&E in Dublin and at here hospital it is chargeable I seem to remember her saying €75 is the standard starting fee in A&E to be seen and she still see's lots of time wasters and malingers the fee doesn't put them off, in many cases its because they have insurance to claim it back on...

Plus it would go against the founding principles of the NHS
 
archangel said:
The doctor could return said £5 if diagnosed with illness otherwise tough luck
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If you don't have £5 in the first place and assuming said disease was contagious, then its tough luck for the community?. Sadly its an unworkable idea.
 
At my surgery it is always possible to get an emergency appointment that day provided the surgery has been phoned early . Otherwise appointments could take up to two weeks. However, it is always possible to see a Practice Nurse on the day of phoning and if she thinks that a patient's condition requires a doctor she will get one quickly.
 
Luckily, I've not needed to see a doctor recently but have been able to get appointments to see nurses quickly and easily. A few years ago, it was hell trying to get past the Rottweilers behind the desk/phone but they seem to have improved in recent years. I think one of the biggest problems most surgeries have is no shows, although the habit some mothers have of making an appointment for little Johnny then getting the whole tribe checked up "while we're all here" gets up some of the doctors' noses too!
 
I very rarely need to see a doctor but last year I had a problem with my mouth so I called the surgery hoping to make an appointment, I was told 'the doctor's only do telephone consultations now' lol I thought it was a joke but no, I couldn't actually go and see my doctor but could speak to him on the phone wtf I thought.

Needless to say I changed doctors.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
If we want to see our own doctor there are unlikely to be appointments available with in three weeks.
To see any doctor two weeks would be normal.
To see a student doctor usually one week
If it is an emergency you are passed to a triage nurse for the gestapo grilling.
and if the chances of death in the next 24 hours is a likely outcome, she will let you wait in the surgery for a gap in the list, or be seen at the end of surgery.
As we only have 7 or 8 doctors we just have to take what is offered.
However If and when you see one they are very good.
Click to expand...

:plus1: this a perfect likeness of our Dr's surgery.
 
Ours is good, similar to the OP's.

We tend to moan about the NHS a lot but consider the alternative... we could be like America where you have to pay for everything or have private health insurance which makes the insurance companies rich at your expense.

There is a lot which could be changed in the NHS but it's infinitely better than not having it.

Nod said:
A few years ago, it was hell trying to get past the Rottweilers behind the desk/phone but they seem to have improved in recent years
Click to expand...

A common scenario at our surgery which I have witnessed a few times:

Phone No. 1 rings... "Hello. doctors; surgery... sorry sir, you need to call the appointments number".

About tens seconds later phone No. 2 rings... "Hello, doctors' surgery...".

The two phones are next to each other and it's fairly obvious that it's the same caller in each case.


Steve.
 
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Mine is shocking. When I was having major back issues, I rang up and told the next appointment available was in 3 months!!!!

Needless to say I had some choice words and the pay miraculously found one closer.

The receptionists are something else.. They actually think they are god.
 
Im having tretament at the minute and there are no complaints. Sometimes the wait at the hospital can be hours but its the same for everyone else.

However last year I went private for a major op. The service was unbelievable, own room, nurse, choice of food, mrs had her own room next door etc. Everything was first class but it cost a packet.
 
Mine is the same as the OP, excellent and pharmacy on site. Plus the doctor through blood tests diagnosed my prostate cancer early some years ago, and i am still here:) - over 40yrs old, get a PSA test guys!!!!!
 
silure130 said:
Im having tretament at the minute and there are no complaints. Sometimes the wait at the hospital can be hours but its the same for everyone else.

However last year I went private for a major op. The service was unbelievable, own room, nurse, choice of food, mrs had her own room next door etc. Everything was first class but it cost a packet.
Click to expand...


I went private twice in the past but as soon as I had my initial appointment I asked to be returned as a NHS patient and not only did I get to jump the year long queue I also got priority treatment at a private clinic.....it was a tip my old doctor told to do......:D
 
Our local surgery gave out emergency on the day appointments as long as you phoned at 8.30am. Not before then and within 5 minutes of that time, the appointments would be gone. The, a couple of months ago, I phone for one of these appointments at exactly 8.30am, it went as follows:

Me: I'd like to make an appointment to see a doctor today

Receptionist: I'm sorry, there are no appointments left for today.

Me: But it's only just 8.30

Receptionist: You needed to ring at 8am

Me: Since when?

Receptionist: It changed last month

Me: So how are your patients supposed to know about this change?

Receptionist: It was posted on the surgery noticeboard

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
 
Having worked at a few GP practices, there does seem to be variation on how things are run. A lot is based on how to manage the "demand". IIRC a study showed that if a GP saw every patient that wanted to be seen there and then by them, they'd have to work 21-hour days. Clearly impossible, so there has to be some form of rationing. The larger the practice, the harder it is to ration - hence you have things like telephone triage.

There does appear to be a loss of basic knowledge on how to look after simple conditions, and I think this may be down to the loss of the traditional family unit whereby the elders in the family would know how to deal with a simple headache or sore throat, and when a doctor really was required. On some days, I reckon 25% of what I see is either self-limiting or easily manageable by the patient themselves.

As for charging, I'm against this on the basis of: 1. it goes against the principle of the NHS, 2. it would dissuade those who really needed to be seen from attending, and 3. it alters the dynamics of the consultation. Someone paying x amount for a consultation would want to come away with something whether it be a referral or a prescription, even if it were for a simple viral illness. People are also more likely to demand more "bang for their buck" and want to deal with several issues in the same 10-minute slot.

Interestingly, a private GP can charge around £70-80 for a single 15-min consultation. In the NHS, a GP is paid around £65-70 for each patient per year, irrespective of the number of consultations.
 
I registered at a new GP locally just over a year ago, since I had moved a couple of years before and never got around to it. I rang up in the afternoon to ask about registering and an appointment and they offered me one the following afternoon. The GP then referred me to a specialist for an investigatory procedure, based on a single instance of a single symptom.

You get adverts on the telly instructing you to go and see your GP if suchandsuch happens, so that's what I did. Charging people for an appointment would discourage them from doing so and to my mind end the concept of "free at the point of delivery". I am not against the NHS buying services from private companies rather than providing them in house, I am against moving away from funding it from taxation to direct funding by patients / insurance.

omens said:
Interestingly, a private GP can charge around £70-80 for a single 15-min consultation. In the NHS, a GP is paid around £65-70 for each patient per year, irrespective of the number of consultations.
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My old GP in Portishead didn't do to badly out of me then, since in over a decade I didn't go to see him at all.
 
At my doctors in the morning everyday its just turn up and wait in the queue (you can't make appointments for the morning) if you need to see a doctor. Its a pretty good system as your guaranteed to be seen, and you can just turn up - you do get a good length of time for the appointment as well. Its especially good for me as I have a genetic immunodeficiency condition which means that if I develop any infections I need to see a doctor as soon as possible for antibiotics etc (simply because even simple infections can have a nasty habit of turning into more major ones as I am naturally unable to produce antibodies to fight them). I developed appendicitis a couple of months ago, and suspecting thats what it was I just popped into the surgery in the morning, and within an hour had seen initially the practise nurse and then the GP who immediately called up the hospital and told me to get over there.

They do appointments in the afternoon/evening for those who can't get time off at work etc, but there is usually a delay of several days before an appointment can become available.
 
onomatopoeia said:
My old GP in Portishead didn't do to badly out of me then, since in over a decade I didn't go to see him at all.
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But as with all social systems, you're subsidising other people. Through taxes, you pay for the fire service even though you haven't used one. There are some patients who I need to monitor every 2-3 weeks over a prolonged period of time. You may require extensive medical input in your later years, and you may well be grateful to be able to access the services you require free at the point of use. I dread to think about privatisation of the service.
 
Ours is pretty good actually - if it is an emergency they will see you the same day. Can usually get an apt fairly quickly regardless. They run a pretty efficient blood clinic and the flu vaccines are well organised.
 
I noticed yesterday that the surgery has started opening one Saturday a month......
 
Pretty much hit and miss depending on the GP.... I did have a stand up argument with one, who has now left, who panicked when wife 19 weeks pregnant was bleeding.... "oh I will call the hospital and get back to you later"...

I may paraphrase slightly, but "Excuse me, there is a telephone on your desk, call now, we will wait..."

"Erm....."

"Foxtrot oscar, we are now going to A&E, I'll call the the Gynae ward on the way.." (Had borrowed a pool car, which can cover 13 miles in any direction pretty quickly, and bluetoothed up!)

Thankfully we did.... all was fine after several concerns... and a couple of complications. By the way Dr at GP did not even examine... just chatted...


However some of the others are brilliant.





As for getting an appointment.. "Is it an emergency?"
"Well not to you, but sometime in the next couple of days would be good!"
I am sure medical receptionists go to special receptionist boot camp!
 
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