"Waited 40 minutes to be seen"

I was booked in to see the nurse today for a whooping cough vaccine which has taken me a few weeks to get, however it is the end of the day and I am still without the vaccine or an appointment.

I had a 9.00am appointment this morning and got to the surgery on time. I think it’s interesting there’s a sign in the surgery that states that if you’re more than 10-20 minutes late for your appointment they are within their rights to reschedule your appointment.

I was waiting for 10 minutes before a patient came out of the nurses office. The nurse then followed about 5 minutes after (this was approx 9.15) saying something about her computer freezing and how she couldn’t take any patients in until this was fixed. She did eventually get her next patient in at 9.20. I waited until 9.35 (the person who had gone in at 9.20 still hadn’t come out) at which point I had to request to cancel the appointment as I had to get to work (when you book one of the first appointments of the day you certainly don’t expect to be be waiting that long!). When I explained my situation to the receptionist she said oh yes I know she’s had a problem with her computer otherwise before that she as running to time. Note to the receptionist then nurse was never running on time. I came into the surgery at literally a minute before 9 and the person who I saw walk out of the nurses office at 9.10 was 3 appointments before me which means they should have been seen and out of there at 8.40 as they should have had the first appointment of the day (I only know this because I asked how many people were before me as the person who went in at 9.20 was still in there 15 mins later - there was still one more person to be seen before me and I was the fourth appointment of the day given the surgery opens at 8.30 and has 10min appointment slots). Had a waited I would have waited AN HOUR for a prebooked appointment which is simply unacceptable.

The worst part is I left the surgery without an appointment as the nurse apparently wasn’t working the following week. I’m currently 28 weeks pregnant and still without the vaccine which is highly frustrating and have to wait until next week to ring to make an appointment for 2 weeks time (so 3 weeks from now).

The receptionist didn’t seem like she cared much to help either.

The waiting time I had to endure today is simply unacceptable and the surgery should be highly embarrassed by this especially for so early in the day.