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Report transcript in: Doctor never got back to me
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Doctor never got back to me
Please Report the Errrors?
this meeting and we record
it right. Hello, Mike.
Hello there,
Paul.
Hello. Thank you for speaking to me. Uh uh.
Basically,
I'm just really insisting to find out about
your recent experience of any GP surgery,
um, appointments or or visiting the GP or any kind of,
uh, contact the the service.
Um, well, I I found it quite isolating,
because when I've tried to make an appointment,
you're not allowed to go to the GP service,
and it has to be done over the telephone.
And
the issue with that is it can take a long time. It can take months
for him to get back to you.
Uh, and sometimes
the doctor hasn't
got back to me. Well, that's happened a couple of times,
and there've been
I I would say, very important phone calls
for him to get back in touch with me.
And
when I tried to phone
the GP surgery,
you're on hold. You could be literally on hold for hours
so you could be,
like, number 12 or 13 or 14 in the queue.
And then sometimes the phone could just cut off
or just before it. It's your turn.
It can just it. The phone's cut off in the past.
Um,
so, yeah, I just found it very isolating. And
I've lost my my trust and faith in my local GP surgery.
And I haven't bothered
to try and make a appointments since then.
Yeah.
Yeah, and And what's the sort of
What's the impact of that on on you, Mike and your kind of life?
Um,
well, I've had a few issues recently
which are quite important,
and
it's been taking a long time.
And eventually I've I've had phone calls back
from the doctor.
I've had a message saying that a doctor will call me between,
say, two
and, um, say either in the morning between, like, eight
and 12 or in the afternoon between
one and five.
So I've got to make sure I have the phone with me.
So I don't miss the call, which, you know,
can cause quite a bit of anxiety in case I missed the call
because the number is always on a
number, So I don't know if the doctor did try calling me,
and
I did. Recently, I'd say about a month ago
I did receive a phone call
over something that's quite important, which, under the hospital, over
at the moment.
And, um,
they just told me that it's it's quite serious,
and I asked you to be worried about it, and they said, Well, I'm not sure.
And then, you know, I'm just back in the system now,
taken a long time.
Uh, but they did say that they would try and rush it ahead
so it doesn't get lost in the system
with me,
but, uh,
but, yeah, I found it very isolating whenever I've had to,
you know, speak to the doctor over anything
or, you know,
yeah, but anything like that. So I I just haven't since then.
I haven't wanted to contact the doctors over anything anymore.
I'm sorry that's happened to you, Mike.
Um,
when you have got through and you are speaking to a doctor,
is that been on the on the telephone?
Well, you
when you phone you never speak to a doctor, you've got to speak to reception first,
and then they make an appointment.
So the process is a long time.
Um,
I was told that I could say it's an emergency appointment, but sometimes they can,
you know, they ask you
what the appointments for, which can be intrusive.
Really, because it's it's private.
Um, and then
they don't always say that
is an emergency.
And then you still wait. One of the particular phone calls was three months
for him to get back to me.
One of the phone calls was,
I've just been That's just too long that
Yeah,
And when you have spoken to people,
what's that experience been like
for you?
Um,
well, at the
do you mean
at the surgery,
either or either either on the phone or at the surgery?
Very isolating because it's not face to face
and you're at home.
And I just think that you need
that face to face contact and the reassurance
which in the past, especially before everything that was, you know,
happening in the pandemic,
um, did feel better.
Did feel as though I was listening to,
and
I have mostly stayed with the same
doctors over the years.
But recently,
uh, the doctors left,
so
I've been passed around to different doctors,
and
it's not the same. It doesn't feel like they they care. As much
as the doctor
and I have spoke to other people,
in similar situations that I've said the same as well.
When you say isolate him,
Can you kind of impact that word a little bit? What? What does that mean for you?
It
it doesn't feel like there's proper help out there.
Um,
doesn't feel like
no one cares, I suppose.
You know, uh, my problems,
our conditions are not
bad enough for me to ask for help,
uh, to ring the doctors.
Um,
and I have put that off,
and I think it's got worse.
Like one of my conditions has got worse, because I've put that off
ringing the doctors.
And now I've been having to go to hospital appointments.
And
when you have been to the surgery, have you have you been Have you been to the surgery?
I suppose, And when you have,
What's that experience been like?
Um, yeah, I have been
to the surgery,
and obviously we've
yes,
the restrictions and
and everything there, it's
it. It's been isolated there at the surgery
because, you know, there's been no one there
in the waiting room.
Uh, the the process of how everything is done, you know,
hand sanitizers, face masks.
It's quite, um,
I don't know an alien experience. If that's a way of wording, it
it's not nice. It's not a pleasant one.
Is there anything positive
from the experience,
Particularly when I suppose, comparing it to before covid.
Is there any anything that's sort of changed
within
your experience of GP services
that you would say has changed to the positive and if so, what? And why?
Yeah,
nothing's changed. It just feels as though it's got worse.
It for me,
I'd say.
When I changed doctors, I was with the same surgery for most of my life.
And then I moved
unchanged
and er,
and that's when he had the same doctor
and they had, like, regular appointments.
And I found that quite positive
and helpful. And, you know, the doctors did help me and,
like, Sign post me,
um,
for for, like, service users and organisations to help, you know,
with the issues they needed help with.
And then that
just slowly changed over time
and, you know, the dots left.
And then I was passed on to another doctor,
Um and then he left.
And then you know, there's
two different
complete
doctors
at
about like the same issue So I
had to explain everything again and with one of the doctors that
it was a return phone call for an appointment, which he knew
what it should have been about.
And he didn't have, um,
all the details up, and then
he asked me what
What was it I wanted?
But it was a return like appointment call.
So the doctor should have known.
And then they had to explain everything again, which was, you know, it wasn't
a nice experience.
Yeah.
Yeah, I can see that. I can absolutely see that.
Thanks, Michael. I'm gonna I think
Is there anything else you'd like to say on this subject before we stop the
recording?
No, I think that's everything. Really.
Thank you. Brilliant.
Yeah. Thank you.
Now
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