Ever tried to get a doctor's appointment these days? It's almost impossible unless you're hunched by the 'phone at 8:30 in the morning, frantically punching in the numbers of your local surgery. If you 'phone after a certain time, you're told that nothing is available and to ring back at 8:30 the next day. If you enquire why you can't make an appointment for the next day, inevitably you'll be informed that none are available. This, you may not be surprised to learn, is a lie. If there are no available appointments for tomorrow, then what's the point of 'phoning back tomorrow? The only reason for this dogmatic insistence that you ring the next morning is so that the NHS can claim that most of their patients are given an appointment well within 24 hours of asking for one.
Never mind the fact that you may have spent a week trying to get through to your surgery every morning only to find the line constantly engaged until you give up in despair. Never mind the fact that, after hours of constant redialling, if you do get through, you're advised to call back tomorrow - only to go through a repeat of the exact same scenario you've just endured. If you 'phone on a Monday to try and arrange an appointment for your day off on a Thursday, you're instructed to ring back on the day - at 8:30 a.m., with every chance of the line being engaged and you being unable to get through. Just so long as they can claim that they're meeting their quotas of providing an appointment within 24 hours, then all your inconvenience and frustrations and several days of early morning calls to an engaged line count for nothing.
If that isn't fiddling with the figures then I don't know what is.
Bear that in mind the next time some governmental pillock says that the waiting times for doctors' appointments have decreased under their tenure. They're talking b*ll*cks. Trust me - I'm a Doctor (Who viewer - or used to be).
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Update: I've since been told by the receptionists at my local surgery that there is no official NHS policy regarding targets of dispensing appointments within 24 hours, but I recall it being in the news at the time. If they want you to 'phone back the next day for an appointment instead of giving you one when you 'phone the day before, then that's surely for the purpose of manipulating the figures in some way. Obvious, innit?
3 comments:
Last time I went to the doctor up here, I managed to get an appointment before 8.30 am, so I could go to work.
Of course ( and this is true) I was told I'd have to force the automatic doors open to get into the waiting room.
Another patient arrived first and did it for me.
Yes. That was Force the Doors Open.
I wonder if your local drug addicts have yet cottoned on to the fact that the doors can be forced open? I'm sure they'd love to 'explore' the place.
I doubt that there'd be any doctors in my local surgery before 8:30 in the morning. Probably still polishing their golf clubs.
There's a drugs case in court every week up here but the Military Wives act like they're in Monarch of the Glen.
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