This fantastic report from guest reporter Karen Minnis from Manchester really highlights the frustration people are feeling at the moment when trying to book G.P appointments. If things were difficult during the pandemic the vaccine roll out has put massive stress on a system that many people were already finding difficult to access.
Hi, my name’s Karen, and I just would like to tell you about my experience I’ve had Monday and Tuesday of this week trying to get through not for not even for an appointment with my doctor for a telephone telephone appointment.
So 8am a.m. Monday morning, I rang the doctors only to be completely cut off. No explanation, no explanation why I was cut off. Just just cut off. So I kept ringing back and ringing back and ringing back. And as I’m doing this, I’m getting more bloody angry. My anxiety was getting worse, you know. Obviously, my language was getting worse, just everything was, you know, it was really, really pissing me off. Looking back on my my call records between.. from eight a.m on the Monday morning to half past ten the same morning at May 26, calls, at each and every one would just cut off. So I had to leave it for a while because, you know, I’m normally a placid person and I’m quite calm as well, but there is just, you know, sometimes certain triggers phoning the doctors now at the moment is just so, so stressful.
You know, they changed the system during lockdown, which, you know, I thought was I thought, well we had enough to put up with, you know, to completely change the system in lockdown. So and it was all press one, press two, press three. And it goes on forever. So, you know, you start off being calm, by the time someone does answer the phone, you know, you’re nearly climbing the walls. So after twenty six times and being cut off, you know, you can imagine how fed up I was.
So I sort of left it, went out, met up with a friend, had a coffee and all the rest of it, just got it off my chest. I’m in recovery, you know, I’m an alcoholic. In a couple of weeks, God willing, I’ll be five years sober. But I have to be careful, you know, because it’s it’s the small pebbles that catch anyone in addiction, you know, that we trip up. We can deal with the big boulders, the tiny little things in life that, you know, we have to be careful for..of.
So, then I started doing the ringing, composed myself, two p.m. I rang and I rang and I rang…nobody answered. And then suddenly it was ringing and I could get through only to be told at quarter past two, that all appointments were taken up.. ring back the next day. So, you know, we’re not getting the service that we deserve. And I spoke to a receptionist since then, and she said they’re just absolutely flooded out, you know, they can’t take the calls that are coming in. And I said, so, you know, you need, you need to report back to your manager. And I wasn’t getting at her because she’s a lovely person. And I said, you need to get back to your manager and tell her that you know, patients, clients that, you know, how they’re feeling and what stress they are putting the patients through and also to revaluate how they are running the bloody surgery, you know.
So that was Monday. So I got over Monday and I set my alarm for Tuesday morning. bang on eight o’clock. I started ringing off, cut off, cut off, cut off 8.32 I rang and it said all appointments had gone. So then there’s a little… On the on the message it says but if you, if you have a child under 12, please hold the line. So I thought, I will lie, you know which doesn’t rest well with me, you know, it doesn’t sit well with me. So, you know, I eventually got through to human being.
So you have to lie, you know, to actually speak to a receptionist at my surgery. And and I just basically told her in no uncertain terms, that I had to have a telephone conversation with the doctor. You know, I was very worried what was what what my problem was. And I needed to speak to somebody, you know. And I must say eventually, at quarter past three that afternoon on Tuesday, a doctor did ring me.
She was very helpful. You know, she’s sending me for a camera down me throat and some of the little tests they’re doing.
So that was that, but the stress, you know, two days of stress just to get an appointment is absolutely… It’s just unacceptable. It’s giving people unnecessary stress, unnecessary negativity.
And it’s not just, you know, I said before about people in addiction, but it’s not just people in addiction. It’s Joe Bloggs, you know, around the corner.
Everybody you talk to about the way that, you know, the GP, the surgeries are going, it’s just not functioning correctly. It just isn’t it isn’t functioning correctly. And, you know, the the doctor that I spoke to I’ve seen her twice. But when I was up in the Covid Jab job, I’ve not been able to see her in the surgery, but I’ve seen her twice when I’ve gone for the vaccine. So, you know, something’s just not right here. And thanks for listening. I feel a little bit better. I’ve got that off my chest. Thank you.