I don't know about your local GP surgery, but I have no trouble getting an appointment to see a Doctor currently?
I phone up, tell the receptionist what it's about (you can say you don't want to give details if you'd rather not) and then I get a call back from my GP a couple of hours later. If they offer it you can even have a videoconsult via your phone if they need to see a part of your body (I did that with a bad leg a few mths ago), or if they really need to see you you can go along in person.
WW, I mentioned this on another thread, there are two main types of Gp surgery now, the private owned for years type, which my previous was, now changed to another, and those being bought up by large PLC, s.
The second type are raking it in, given a perfect excuse not to hire doctors, they usually only hire locums in between jobs anyway, and love palming you off on a nurse and are always taking on new patients.
Simple maths, loads of patients registered at X amount a year, employ as few as possible = big profits. My wife insisted on staying until being told she could not make an HT appointment full stop, she said a month would do, then 3 months but still no, the reason, they could not find any locums to hire .I also have come to believe the less hospital referrals they make the more money they keep, cannot prove that but from experience it does seem that way.
I personally know two old guys whose life was cut short by misdiagnosis by this surgery, and a local Black cab Driver who had a stroke near there in his cab, walked in, face dropped on one side and the receptionist spent 10 minutes trying to understand him, then said no doctors or nurses there and dialed 999, which she should have done on first sight regardless.
Yet again profits and shareholders are taking over and just like big companies the working class get paid peanuts, doctors surgeries are going the same way. Big business are snapping them up. They are paying peanuts and getting monkey doctors, nurses and reception staff.
A previous receptionist, and a friend, who had worked there for 20 plus years, left because she was not prepared to lie or see patients neglected, many she knew personally and has been out of work since, she simply could not live with herself just for a wage even though she had no other job to go to and her lifestyle has changed downwards.
That is the future, and it is not a future of improvement, just the rich getting richer at the expense of our health.
