The care I've received at this General Practitioner practice has always been excellent, but their new booking system leaves much to be desired.
The current process for booking a routine appointment requires you to fill out a form between 8:00 AM and 2:00 PM, which is then triaged to determine the appropriate advice or appointment. However, since it’s not a live chat, you can’t fill out the form outside of that time window, making it difficult to accommodate busy schedules. Personally, it took me two months to find the time to complete this.
Registering with the form provider, Patch, took me 20 minutes, and the form isn’t accessible through the NHS app under that name, making the instructions unclear. Even after registering, if you don’t prefer phone calls, the system forces you into back-and-forth communication to arrange an appointment, which is frustrating.
Despite going through all of this, I was initially offered the wrong type of appointment. I needed a General Practitioner appointment, as I had expected from the start. This led to yet another inconvenient phone call to reschedule, and again, no visual, online option was available to streamline the process.
Previously, you could book appointments online and see a list of available slots, which was far simpler and more efficient. The new system feels unnecessarily opaque and cumbersome, even though the care provided once you navigate it is excellent.
I can’t imagine how challenging this system would be for someone with Attention Deficit Disorder, someone new to the UK or unfamiliar with the language, or even someone feeling unwell.
P.S.: It’s worth mentioning that this site doesn’t allow certain words, like the health service’s name or the type of doctor, to appear in all caps, which adds another layer of frustration.
Visited July 2023
Anon 12 Jan 2025