We arrived early for the doctor’s appointment; there is a little screen in the surgery with ‘important’ announcements, including how many doctor’s hours are wasted by people being late or not turning up, and how so many people are turning up at A&E (Accident and Emergency department at hospital) that it is clogging up the system.
So we sit down to wait the ten minutes for our appointment (because we considerately came early) only to see the little screen show us a message that our doctor was running thirty (yes 30) minutes late. I had made the appointment this morning and given my phone number, would it have been too much for them to have phoned me to let me know? Oh and by the way, we did go to A&E on Friday because we tried to make an appointment to see the doctor on Thursday and there were none available to next week. We went to A&E and were seen within five minutes (yes 5) and had every test known to man, a diagnosis made and antibiotics prescribed.
So… thirty-five (yes 35) minutes after the appointment time we went in to see the doctor.
Lois Elsden 
That’s not bad. In the USA people wait hours and hours in emergency and the horror stories of heart attack victims etc dying while they wait are legendary. National Health yes! Rule Britannia!
xx
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The hospital emergency system is usually good… and they do have to put up with a lot of unnecessary people coming in for trivial things, but the system at our doctor’s surgery is just a joke!
I think you need to come over (not to experience the (National Health Service, of course) but t experience all the lovely other things Britannia has to show!
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Unfortunately this is symptomatic of the attitude of some of the medical profession. I remember years ago takeing Andrew for a progress check when he was a baby and I’d carefully booked the appointment to coincide with my lunch hour. The doctor was not at the clinic at the appointed time and after about 20minutes to Half an hour I asked the receptionist why this was so. She replied, He’s a busy man”, the implication being that I was not busy nor was my time valuable. When the doctor finally graced us with his presence, not bothering to apologise, he irritated me even further by referring to me as “Mum”. When I pointed out I was not his mum , but had a name, he lokked at me uncompehendingly. He then proceeded to call Andrew “she” until I pointed out that he was actually male!
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It’s so infuriating isn’t it! The arrogance of some members of the medical profession… and yet the ones we met at hospital were wonderful, efficient, polite and friendly.
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We have a pretty good local GP practice is in comparison with many I’ve come across, but that kind of wait is quite normal – and quite unacceptable. I will have a meeting soon with our local MP (who, surprisingly, picked up on a letter of mine to the local paper – but I did say I was going to make a protest vote to UKIP!); One of the issues I’m going to bring up is the appalling service provided by the overpaid GPs in this country; most practices in my experience seem to be run for the convenience of the practice manager rather than the patients. It’s little wonder that people go to the local A&E. By the way, the national health service in Romania is pretty appalling but the GPs/doctors are superb (10 minutes to diagnose my problem; 10 years for doctors in the UK to diagnose the same condition in my mother!), so I don’t support UKIP’s recent comments about doctors from overseas.
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I agree… it sounded in retrospect as if I was criticising the doctors and staff… I think it unrealistic demands put on practices, the dreadful and dreaded notion of ‘targets’, and another nightmare… management! I’ve seen at first had what ‘management’ in education does, and I’m sure it is the same for every other public services, police, fire service, social work… I’mm sure all the coal-face workers are suffering in the same way… and the recipients of their services.
Oh and by the way, we have the most wonderful Romanian dentist… brilliant guy!
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I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there Lois
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Thanks Is!
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