"Little help and advice given when making an appointment"

I've had hip pain for weeks and I travel a lot with my job so not ideal.

Phoned my GP Practice at the start of the week and asked if there was any appointments with any GP at any time for the days i could manage to attend. The answer was "no there's none". A silence ensued with no offer of any other available appointments before I was then transferred to the Triage Nurse.

Had to explain the whole thing again. Her advice was to take paracetamol! I then asked when I could get an appointment and was offered one on one of the days I had originally asked for.

I just feel patients have to grovel and jump through hoops to get appointments. Even when my hairdresser apologies for not having appointments on the day of preference she offers an alternative. On the practice's website it states that "Patients can make appointments to see a specialist in acupuncture".

Also asked how I went about that only to be told that people need to go through the GP - catch 22!