"Hard to contact by phone"

Saturday morning. Too urgent for regular GP, referred to out of hours GP by NHS 111 helpline.

Came to hospital and was examined. Minor administrative problems (doctor had been looking at wrong notes) soon sorted.

Doctor wanted to prescribe me some medication, and we agreed which pharmacy (open on Saturday) I'd be visiting. Rather than a paper form, he said he'd send it electronically. I suggested I should wait until he had confirmed they had the medication in stock, but he said go straight over - if there was a problem, they could phone him.

At pharmacy, they had not received prescription. They wouldn't phone, but gave me a number to phone.

This number had a whole minute of spiel about coronavirus, followed by four options, none of which was the out of hours GP. I tried reception: "Reception is now closed. Opening hours are 8:30am to 4:30pm. Please call back within these hours." This was at about noon. Was it because it was Saturday? Not stated that it was working days only.

Pharmacist gave me phone number of pharmacy and I went home for lunch. After lunch, phoned pharmacy. Still not received prescription. I phoned hospital again, same message. Tried again and selected "minor injuries unit" instead of reception, and MIU put me through (but didn't give me a phone number I could use).

After I had explained problem, I was phoned back with a prescription reference that I could, they said, take to any pharmacy. I phoned the pharmacy, but they said they couldn't process it because it had been sent to another branch of the chain.

Phoned hospital again. This time tried "NHS Treatment Centre". This option merely gave me another phone number that didn't go anywhere useful - their reception didn't even have an answering message. Phoned MIU again, who first tried to give me the same prescription reference again, then handed me over to a doctor, who sent a prescription to the pharmacy there and then. Phoned pharmacy. Received prescription, but the ointment was out of stock.

At this point I gave up, but a little later was phoned by the doctor who had examined me. I explained the problem again, mentioned that the ointment was out of stock, and queried this, because he had not offered to prescribe ointment.

Later still, doctor phoned me back. His colleague who had sent the second prescription had prescribed ointment by mistake. He had phoned the pharmacy, checked what medication they had in stock, and sent them the correct prescription. I just had time to go back into town and pick it up.

Conclusion:

Doctors: good and helpful, but a little slapdash (first wrong notes, then wrong prescription).

Phone system: Has no way I can find of phoning the out of hours GP service. (Web site also gives no contact details for this.)

Result: a whole day of frustrating telephoning just to get a prescription filled.