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Monday 26 August 2013

An Open Letter to GP practices everywhere

It must be really annoying when people say they have an emergency when they clearly don't but let me go some way to explain why.  Here is an account of what happened for me this morning....

At each of these times I phoned my GP practice

7:58 : "Your practice is closed, please phone back after 8am"
7:59 : "Your practice is closed, please phone back after 8am"
7:59 : "Your practice is closed, please phone back after 8am"
8:00 : Engaged
8:01: Engaged
8:01: Engaged
8:01: Engaged
8:02 :

Me : "Hi, I'd like to make an appointment for my daughter"
GP : "We can give her an appointment next week, all the appointments for today are already gone"
Me : "Really?!"
GP : "If you feel it is an emergency you can bring her to the emergency clinic at 11am"
Me : "I wouldn't use the word emergency but I'd like her seen in the next couple of days
GP : "We don't have any appointments left"
Me : "I guess I'll bring her to the emergency clinic then"


Sort it out!!

4 comments:

  1. And you are lucky, because 8:02 is usually 8:20 for me on constant redial & getting two other children ready.

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  2. I know, I had thought how lucky I was to get through. That in itself needs sorted out!

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  3. I know how you feel my GP practice is the same it's the following week for any appointments. I used to be a GP receptionist and if we had no appointments when a mum phoned for a child we used the words," do you feel your child needs to be seen? " and if you said yes you are told to bring them down to surgery. We didn't use the word emergency which as you say you want child seen but it's not an emergency.
    I phoned a GP for a young friend who's on 18 yrs for her baby I asked for a house call to be told they don't do house calls for a baby, but bring baby to surgery. I was horrified,the mum had no car and no money so I paid for taxi there and back. I was so angry,no house calls for a baby? I've never heard of that before and certainly never in the place I worked at.

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  4. Why wouldn't a baby be entitled to the same service as any other patient?!

    ReplyDelete