Argyle Doctors Surgery change your telephone system for appointments

Dear Patient, Thank you for taking the time to read this. Argyle GPs are aware that some patients are finding it increasingly difficult to get the appointments and services they need from us, and feel you should be made aware of the reasons. Over the past few years, successive governments have reduced the investment in general practice from around 10% of the NHS budget to nearer 7 %. In spite of this reduction in funding we still provide 90% of consultations carried out in the NHS. There is access to GP services 24 hours, seven days a week (through the surgery and the Out of Hours Service) and the demand to see GPs is rising dramatically. There are currently 340 million GP consultations a year, an increase of 40 million in the last five years. The Argyle Medical Group offers 95,000 patient appointments a year on average. This has not been matched by an increase in GP and staff numbers or an expansion in the infrastructure. Added to this we are expected to take on more and more work previously carried out in hospitals, and are obliged to attend meetings with the Local Health Board and spend hours preparing for and meeting our Appraisers. All of these mean less time to see our patients. In addition, we are faced with huge difficulties in recruiting new doctors and nurses to work in general practice. Currently there is a shortfall of about 10,000 GPs across the UK. It is impossible to see how this shortfall can be addressed when it takes a minimum of ten years to train a GP. In short general practice is in crisis. We simply want you to know that we are aware of the problems you have accessing some services and that we are working as hard as we can to provide those services. We hope you will bear with us as we strive to continue to provide quality general practice across the local area.

Totally agree. It's one thing guaranteed to raise my blood pressure this current system. Different timings for booking morning and afternoon appointments would be a start but I would also like to have the facility of booking an appointment in advance.

Thank you for starting this petition and trying to initiate change. Many of the doctors at Argyle Street are fantastic - but the appointment system in this day and age is simply unacceptable. I've been lucky enough to work and travel to different parts of the UK and beyond (England, France, Southern Africa, South America) and can honestly say I have never struggled as much to get a doctors appointment as I do in my home county of Pembrokeshire. It is virtually impossible...and A and E is sometimes the only option (which must place unnecessary strain on Withybush services). Please please can we have a more sensible appointment system soon. I am also interested to know how many doctors to patients there are in Argyle street - I heard recently that it is the largest practice in Wales in terms of number of patients - no idea if this is true but it would be interesting to know. Thanks.

new system despreately needed can even get the babies into be seen.

Spending 45mins + on the phone and not getting an appointment is sole- distroying, also lack of continuity for seeing the same doctor. There must be examples of better practice.

I recently needed an appointment for a non emergent visit to the surgery,I did not want a same day appointment ahead of possibly a child with a ear infection or the like.Why can't we make arrangements for tomorrow?

Iv also tried to get appointments for a disabled person and only to be told after many many calls that there are no appointments,there needs to be a change because its not fzre

Online booking system, hold emergency short notice appointments in day, allowing appointment slots to be booked up for routine checks long in advance then appointments for other reason at less advance whilst saving slits for In day appointment booking.

Is there any paper petitions,as I own a salon,and will be able to get people to sign that, I know a lot of them don't use computers

Either more than one line attached to the dialling number or make online booking available.

I can never get an app,and older people can't sign this form as lots of them don't have computers!!!!

I am not at this surgery but my son and daughter and their families are plus many of my relatives.

The appointments system at Argyle Street practice is little less than farcical. I have first hand knowledge of the system employed in a busy London Practice. Here an initial appointment is for 10 minutes up to 3 weeks in advance. 5 minutes late and its a 5 minute appointment- as above - 3 misses and you are looking for another GP. Based upon the initial appointment another is made - there and then- for as long as the GP considers necessary. It works well there - it could here as well except for the intransigence of the practice manage - whosoever you may be - get real - appreciate the problems you are causing and repent - NOW .

At the moment you can ring when the switch board opens and be offered an appointment in 15 minutes which is impossible to meet. Surely you should fill these appointments the day before

The receptionists are very good working under difficult conditions.There's two main problems at the surgery , people getting appointments & emergency appointments and not turning up also timewasters who use the surgery when self medicating would do ( paracetamol at pennies in supermarkets )they would say they can't afford this " as they smoke on a cigarette while drinking in the pub every weekend I would suggest a 3 strikes and you're out system.The other pr oblem is the management team are so incompetent they could not run a p*** up in a brewery.They give NO SUPPORT at all to the receptionists who as I said do a very good job the abuse and foul language the have to put up with is unbelievable (three strikes and your out would cut this down) but again management will not or are too gutless to do this . So I think the three strike rule and a new management team would solve a lot of the problems.

An additional comment/ Thought, at my previous G.P.'s there was the facility to have a 5 minute telephone appointment. This would free up the Doctor to deal with the longer and more serious appointments, whilst the easier items could be dealt with. For example if a patient just needed a simple drug review or prescription that didn't require a face-to-face appointment, it could be dealt with in this way and free up so much more time to see far more patients. This could also be done as per previous with the Nurse calls we used to get to triage to patients.

I agree very frustrating appointment booking system. Needs more telephone operators and opportunity to make appointments at desk as well as by phone

My husband and I would be very, very, grateful for immediate changes to the telephone system enabling us to make easier appointments.

As a widowed woman in her 70's I have seen the changes over the years and many of them, not for the better! Things need to change and the appointment system needs to be more user friendly. I currently find it incredibly hard to get an appointment, things need to change for the better!

As a disabled ex-serviceman I already find it incredibly hard to get to see a Doctor, often having to go several days before I can get through to get an appointment. The staff as lovely as there are, are often overwhelmed due to the problems with the new computer system, that doesn't print off your repeats prescriptions never mind anything else!