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Making a doctors' appointment

mp500

I finally plucked up the courage to register with an NHS GP surgery a few months ago. It went nice and easily; just a simple form and questionnaire. That's the first time I've had an NHS GP since 2017.

I finally plucked up the courage to book an appointment the other day. So I went to my local surgery... and it was unexpectedly closed. So I went into town where the main surgery is. They have a 'triage' system where they take some basic details then get someone to telephone you to book the actual appointment.

Of course no one ever bothered calling.

  • I chased the surgery up and it turns out they were trying to call my old telephone number, (which had not been in service for a number of years), rather than the up to date one which I wrote on the registration form.

    Wish me luck....

  • The following Monday... still nothing. I'll go and chase it up tomorrow.

  • Well, its Tuesday and they still haven't called.

    I'll give them till next week (I'm busy the next few days), then I'll pop back and chase it up.

  • I'm lucky that my doctors don't do this, there is the 8am scramble for urgent that day morning appointments, but afternoon appointments are bookable and longer, so as if you have something non urgent that needs a bit more time to discuss then you can and you can ask for the doctor you prefer

  • It’s increasingly the norm that GP surgeries require us to submit appointment requests via an online form, with the requests then triaged by the surgery’s team.

    The forms may only be accessible for a limited time every day. For example, our surgery makes the forms available at 8 am on every working day, but access to them is then typically removed after as few as just 10 minutes, because they’ve already reached capacity for that day.

    Depending on how important our request has been assessed as being, we’re then contacted with details of our appointment. That appointment could be for the same day (for the most urgent cases), or up to several weeks later (for less urgent cases).

    Those who don’t have the ability to complete those forms can instead call or visit the surgery first thing in the morning, but the staff will still only complete the online form on their behalf.

    I‘d suggest asking your surgery to explain their appointment booking system (or looking it up on their website), and then perhaps requesting any reasonable adjustment that you might need in order to be able to request your appointments.