"Poor Service & No Appointments"

Every time I call bang on 8am I am around 10th place in the queue and by the time they get to me at 8:15-20 they are fully booked. I had a chest infection and I have asthma and they made me call 3 days in a row. Each day they said they had no slots left, and to go to A&E, who actually were so busy they posted a video online saying please stop coming. The 3rd day when they told me they had no slots left I had to beg as I couldn’t breathe, and had to stop every 3 words to catch my breath. They had to then find a doctor and ask if it was okay for me to be seen.

I’ve now been struggling with a back issue. I called bang on 8am. I was 11th in the queue. I got through at 8:20 and they told me they were at capacity and to call back at 5pm. I tried the online form on their website but it said fully booked too. At 5pm I couldn’t get my call to go through, I would click through the options (both 1 and 2) and it would say they are experiencing too many calls and to keep trying. Then it would hang up. It did this several times and I kept trying. By 5:10 it connected, and said I was 19th in the queue. I got through by 5:45/50 and the woman said as it was 10 to 6 there were no more slots and that I should’ve called at 5. I said I tried to but I kept hanging up and eventually it took me to 19th in queue which I waited 40 minutes. She said that phone lines were steady but not over busy and that it was strange… as if this didn’t happen?! I then said how I’d tried on the NHS app at 5:10 too and it was closed already. And how I’d called at 8am and after 10 people in front of me they were fully booked?!

Disgusting service. Not enough appointments. Serious neglect of people’s health and wellbeing. Always been the same but has gotten so much worse within this past year or two. Have to literally beg to be seen. And yet when I had an appointment with a suspicious mole on my neck, I waited 30 minutes over my appointment time, sat down in the room, was then given the all clear and was in there less than 10 seconds. So why the wait and why not more appointments?