"getting appointments"

It continues to be a miserable experience trying to get appointments at this surgery, and this predates Covid. It is extremely difficult to get through at 8am to book an appointment, so most if not all are gone when you finally do get through. (For flu jabs, people seem happy, but maybe it is scheduled or walk in). Also, there is no 'place in queue' system, so you have no idea if they are about to answer, which on average seems to take about 20 minutes. In theory, there is an online booking system with the website saying you can book up to four months in advance. I've been on several times at different periods, but this has never been the case; there are often no GP appointments on it at all - today just had phlebotomy (?) appointments. Again this is compounded by no information on how many appointments are available, if they are added every day, or once a week etc, or when they go live so you can book. This means you have to sit on your computer throughout the day refreshing the screen to see if anything comes up. So after failing the telephone and online route, you can try a different NHS symptom call back service. This means registering on their website, but today's slots were also taken, but again, no information on how many are available. That system goes live at midnight every day, so I am going to stay up and try that. At the end of the day, the phone and two online systems are routing you to a fixed number of doctors, and there are obviously not enough. But then it is a waste of time finding this out, and obviously aggravates staff and patients as other reviews demonstrate. A couple of things could help this fruitless waiting - one, put a 'place in queue' on the phone system; two, add text (or blocked out calendar) to the online appointments system or on the main website, saying how many online bookings are usually available and when they go live; three, add text (or blocked out calendar) on the NHS symptom call back service. The advice pre Covid was to actually turn up at the surgery round 7.30am to get an appointment, which is what I have done before, but this is obviously not available, plus it is bit of an indictment. Finally, if you go to the walk-in clinic downstairs in desperation (also done this) it is usually a long wait, but more importantly, if your problem needs a hospital referral, they can't do this, so you have to go back to trying to see your GP. Be warned! All that said, if and when you do get an appointment, the staff are always lovely, but I don't think they fully realise how awful the booking system is, either because they don't go through it, or because patients are so grateful to see them that they don't say anything, or because they dismiss the complaints here as unbalanced. I do hope it gets sorted as it is miserable. I meanwhile, will try at midnight, and/or at 8am!