"Appointments Inaccessible"

Today was my fourth consecutive day of trying and failing to get an appointment. Friday 9th July 2021, Monday 12th, Tuesday 13th and Wednesday the 14th.

Each day I started calling the practice at 07:55, selecting the options for an appointment to be met with an engaged tone, redial, repeat, usually until around 0815 where I would join a queue, usually at around position 50-80.

45 mins plus multiplied by four days listening to the same 30 seconds of looping hold music, as my number in the queue slowly reduced.

3 hours of having my brain slowly melted, ears pricking each time I get a position notification, "you are 45th in the queue, you are 45th in the queue, you are 45th in the queue, you are 44th in the queue, you are 44th in the queue" etc.

Today, convinced I'd be met with the same response of "There are no appointments left, try calling at 8am tomorrow" as if I'd just rolled out of bed at 8:30am and expected to get an appointment like I'm some sort of diva celebrity. So at position 15 in the queue I decided to make my way to the surgery in person.

I arrived to an empty reception, no queue out the door as I expected, the reason being they were no longer allowing appointments to be made in reception. There were no staff in sight, so I waited for ten minutes as my position in the queue trickled down from 15 to 5.

There were only a handful of patients in the waiting room, which I thought odd for a practice with 20+ rooms, at a time when the appointments were all supposedly fully booked.

I got through the phone queue before anyone arrived to assist in reception (I had pressed the buzzer/bell upon arrival). The lady on the phone informed me their were no appointments left and I should try at 8am the next day...

I expressed my frustrations, to be met with various stock responses basically informing me there was nothing she could do, I could have contact details for a supervisor or one of the partners, there was no one to complain to, she said she couldn't do anything different in my place either.

I said I was sorry for having to be curt with her but all I wanted is a 60 second appointment for a fit note before all my benefits are stopped and I can't afford to eat, travel and/or get evicted.

I've also got a lot of constant pain in my shoulder from overzealous voluntary litter picking the last few months, making sleeping very difficult, but at the moment the fit note is more pressing.

What do I do? The service must be greatly understaffed, else what is happening to all the appointments. There will have been at least another 50 people behind me in the phone queue waiting to be told the same thing as me, "call back tomorrow at 8am".

Edit: I finally got through on my fifth day of trying and got an afternoon callback, conversation with doctor took 45 seconds. Almost 4 hours of listening to hold music, 100+ redials of an engaged number, for less than a minute of the doctors time. The inefficiency beggars belief.