1. Community
  2. Health promotion
  3. Other Conditions and General Health

GP appointment booking

Posted , 3 users are following.

lucas68541
lucas68541

I'm interested to know how other people feel about the current appointment booking system for GP practices.

Personally, I've been regularly frustrated with the odd occasion when I have tried to schedule one, often being in a telephone queue for a long time and not getting anywhere.

The reason I ask this question is because I'm a software engineer and I'm considering creating an application to schedule GP appointments via WhatsApp and would like to know first if it's worth pursuing it.

Lucas

0 likes, 2 replies

2 Replies

  • Marina_Dee
    Marina_Dee lucas68541

    Posted

    Your feelings are shared by many people especially your comments about the long wait on the phone. At the moment all GP surgeries are only seeing the most urgent cases so that causes problems as well. There are already several adequate systems for letting patients book their own appointments but it seems the way forward is to get the patient to email the surgery with a description of their symptoms, and the urgency of the symptoms is then triaged. If you are considered urgent you are phoned within 2 hours but others wait in a queue to be phoned as soon as it is possible. you leave a tel number that is best for contacting you. Not all patients really need to be seen and advice and medication can be dispensed without the patient going to the surgery. Does your practice have this system in place. Have a look at their web page.

    There is also the NHS app which can be used for this sort of thing and I am guessing it will be further developed in the coming months/years.So , well done for your progressive thinking but it may already be in place . Dont give up.....we need people like you to sort out the NHS problems.

  • gary84129
    gary84129 lucas68541

    Posted

    Hate it. Mines makes me phone at 845 and I rarely get a time that suits then when I say my boss can't let me away they will say " well they should its a doctors appointment" and it annoys me because they only let you away if it's an emergency appointment, so I ask for one of those and get told, no, emergencies only. I try and explain I need one in advance if it would help and I get told only for follow up appointments. It actually puts me off phoning the doctors to be honest and I rarely go in. I'm actually glad the booking system now with covid means they are phoning yeah at set times, and then making follow up appointments.

    I am on the doctors side here, they are against the wall, but the receptionists are rarely nice to me.

Back to top

Report or request deletion

Thanks for your help!

We want the community to be a useful resource for our users but it is important to remember that the community are not moderated or reviewed by doctors and so you should not rely on opinions or advice given by other users in respect of any healthcare matters. Always speak to your doctor before acting and in cases of emergency seek appropriate medical assistance immediately. Use of the community is subject to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and steps will be taken to remove posts identified as being in breach of those terms.