"No appointments- abandon all hope, suffer in…"

I rarely need a GP appointment, but when I do, it's nigh on impossible to get one. According to the Collingwood Surgery website (on 8th Oct 24), an appointment can be booked using the NHS App- I tried it and it said 'cannot show GP appointments...call surgery directly'. I therefore called up after work at 5pm on 8th Oct 24 and was 14th in the queue. I waited patiently for 1hr 20mins where eventually I became stuck at position number 2 in the queue and I never got any further forwards. I ended up having to end the call as I realised it was then 6:20pm and the surgery shuts at 6pm...i.e. nobody was going to pick up. I therefore took the decision to travel to the surgery to visit in person on 9th Oct 24 in order to avoid the telephone torture again- even the call back feature has been removed. I asked at the desk to book an appointment and was told 'there's none left today'. I said this was fine as I would happily book an appointment in the coming days or weeks. The reply was that absolutely no appointments can be booked at the moment due to an upgrade of the computer system and that the only way to try and get an appointment is to phone up at 8:30am on the day or visit the surgery at 8:30am. In short, 'computer says no' and patients have to join the huge scrum and hope they get lucky in the appointment lottery (which makes me very anxious)- more chance of spotting Lord Lucan riding Shergar I think. They advised it will be like this until 21st October. I strongly avoid going to the GP and it takes me a while to pluck up the courage to seek help when I need it (usually much later than I should), only to be turned away- the service at Collingwood Surgery is not fit for purpose. I was advised to go to the walk in centre instead at NTGH. Looks like I'll have to find a new GP that meets the basic brief of allowing me to make an appointment once in a while. Collingwood Surgery: (1) Why isn't there a backup system for appointments if your main system is down? (I could knock you up an Excel spreadsheet in minutes which would do the job) (2) Who knowingly signed off on this mess? (3) Why have you lost sight of patient care by making your services completely inaccessible to those who work and can't join the 8:30am melee? I could not feel more let down by your practice.