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Booking an appointment at my GP practice

Posted By Quine

"Booking an appointment at my GP practice"

About: General practices in Ayrshire & Arran

(as the patient),

Since COVID the local GP practice has taken on a different approach in operating the appointment service. As before you could make an appointment either for the day you called the GP practice or an appointment in advance. The new system allows you only to make an emergency appointment on the day you call the practice. 

The practice phone lines opens at 8:15 am, what is a very busy time of the day for many people who are either getting their children ready for school or commuters getting ready to go to work.  Most of the time the line are engaged until about 8:45 am - 9 am and when your call is taken most of the appointments of the day are taken and you are requested to phone again the next day. If you are able to book an appointment you need to tell the receptionist the reason for your call, then the GP will phone you back during the day at any of his/her desired time.  As a patient you are not allowed to request a time/time slot; after the phone call with the GP, the GP will make the decision if he/she want to see you in person. This whole process can take a couple of days, as sometimes the GP does not call back until after 4:00 pm and an appointment has to be made for the next or another day. 

The system is undermining peoples health condition because of the requirement that you are only allowed to make an emergency appointment. Instead of preventing a health or wellbeing issues of becoming more serious, they only allow you to make an appointment when the situation is getting out of control.

 
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Responses

Response from Interim Programme Lead, Governance and Assurance, Primary & Urgent Care, NHS Ayrshire & Arran 14 months ago
NHS Ayrshire & Arran

Submitted on 03/03/2023 at 13:00
Published on Care Opinion at 13:00

Dear Quine

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience accessing your GP Practice. I am so sorry that you are finding it difficult to get an appointment.

GP Practices are now busier than they have ever been and at times, demand is unfortunately exceeding capacity. GP Practices need to prioritise those patients with the most urgent clinical need therefore many have now moved to an “on the day” appointment system.

We are aware that it can be difficult for patients to get through on the phones first thing in the morning and understand how extremely frustrating this can be. The primary care team is working with many practices to implement some changes to try and improve access. This includes helping the practice upgrade their phone system or increase the number of lines they have as well as developing digital systems to allow patients to access the practice without the need to phone.

Receptionists are trained to ask relevant questions when someone is looking for an appointment to make sure they get to see the most appropriate clinician for their need. In some cases this may not be the GP but with another clinician in the practice, e.g. a practice nurse or physiotherapist. If you’re offered a phone appointment with a GP, they will triage their calls and prioritise these in order of clinical urgency with the information they have.

We would really like the opportunity to link with your GP practice and highlight this feedback to them. We would be keen to work with them to understand if anything further can be done to improve the current situation and ensure that patient’s healthcare needs are addressed early wherever possible to prevent any possibility of further serious illness. If you would like us to do this, I would be really grateful if you could email the name of your GP practice to HscpAdmin@east-ayrshire.gov.uk to allow us to make contact with them.

Best wishes

Marie

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