Struggling to see a GP? You're not alone

SQUEEZE ON SERVICES: Many patients are struggling to
get a doctor's appointment.

A CHELMSLEY Wood-based health watchdog has highlighted the problems patients have booking an appointment with their doctor.
Healthwatch Solihull recently released its annual report. It included a section detailing the difficulties many people encountered when contacting their GP surgery.
Common complaints include long delays in calls being answered and the shortage of slots available with family doctors.
In particular, it is notoriously difficult to get through to practices first thing in the morning, when they tend to be deluged with calls.
Having delved into the issue, Healthwatch made a number of recommendations for how GPs could get a better handle on the issue.
These included looking at ways to cope with the influx of calls at the start of the day and encouraging patients to make more “efficient” use of the system.
It was also suggested that surgeries looked at whether their staff needed further customer service training.
Solihull’s Green Party believes that an ageing population and a shortage of doctors were adding to the problems being reported UK-wide.
The Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has said that some of Healthwatch’s recommendations fell outside their remit, although discussions about GP opening Healthwatch are based at Chelmsley’s Enterprise Centre hours were ongoing.
Karen Helliwell, the CCG’s director of integration, said: £We are continuing to work with our practices across Birmingham and Solihull to offer patients improved access to GP services, including appointments in the evenings and at weekends."
Two years ago, a nationwide survey suggested that around one in ten patients had not been able to book a GP appointment at their last attempt.
Almost half (48 per cent) could not get a time on the day they had wanted, while 26 per cent had experienced difficulties contacting the surgery by phone.appointments in the evenings and at weekends..."