It's almost impossible to get through on a morning to book appointments which are in limited supply and first come first served (as opposed to triaged). If you don't get an appointment on the day you call, you can't get one for a future date as they don't release new ones till following day.
When I have my regular diabetic review (which they schedule for me), there are usually follow up appointments for blood tests (within the week) with a follow up in 6 weeks (which they can't book in advance because the appointments haven't been released that far out).
On a couple of occasions when I turned up for tests the person assigned was not trained to take blood (for diabetic HBA1C tests). On a couple of other occasions, the blood was put into the wrong kind of tube. Pretty sure I could draw blood myself, squirt it into the right kind of tube and post it off to the labs.
For urgent problems I've been resorting to the King Street walk-in center (who are extremely good and responsive). While they can offer me immediate diagnosis and issue prescriptions, they are not supposed to offer follow on care (which is supposed to be handled by my own GP). How do you do that when your own GP can't/won't see you for weeks at a time?
The only redeeming feature of this practice is that the receptionists are all lovely. Sadly they are hamstrung by the system, but at least they are sympathetic. I would be pretty short tempered by 1pm if I had to tell all my customers "We can't help you today, try calling back tomorrow"
"Very poor practice"
About: Stanley Stanley Wakefield WF3 4HS
Posted via nhs.uk
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