The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Woman forced to call 131 times in effort to get an appointment
Huge amount of pressure on city’s surgeries
A Dundee woman was forced to call her doctor’s surgery 131 times to gain an emergency medical appointment.
Ellie Brown, a patient at Park Avenue Medical Centre, made the attempts on Monday morning between 8am and 8.15am.
After 130 failed attempts to book an on the day appointment, Ellie’s 131st effort was finally successful.
Fellow patients branded Park Avenue’s booking system “utterly horrendous” and said accessing a GP is highly challenging.
Her experience has left Ellie frustrated and convinced her a more user-friendly, flexible booking system has to be adopted by surgeries.
Ellie explained: “My previous record was something like 50 calls.
“I really like my doctors, they try their hardest.
“It can’t be easy for them. It’s the system nationwide.
“You have to phone at eight o’clock, so everyone is scouring around for the same appointments.
“There has to be a way to spread appointments out throughout the day to make it easier for people. It is frustrating.
“The system has to be more flexible. Luckily I got an appointment in the end.”
Park Avenue Medical Centre is a privately operated medical centre.
Centre manager Graham Scott said centre staff are working under “extreme pressure” due to a lack of GP capacity.
Bill Bowman, Scottish Conservative MSP for the North East, said: “This is a shocking example which illustrates the chronic problems in securing appointments at local GP surgeries up and down the country.
“Surgeries cannot be expected to cope if they do not have enough resources available. The SNP Government must take urgent action to address this.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We are sorry to hear about Ms Brown’s experience. Since 2007 the Scottish Government has delivered record numbers of doctors, nurses and other staff across the NHS in Scotland. Earlier this year we announced an investment of £71.6 million in 2017/18 to support general practice and improve the way services are delivered in the community.
“This new funding has been agreed with the BMA and forms the first stage of the Scottish Government’s commitment to invest an extra £250 million in support of general practice by 2021/22 – as part of a pledge to increase overall annual funding for primary care by £500 million by the end of this parliament.
Surgeries cannot be expected to cope if they do not have enough resources available. The SNP Government must take urgent action to address this. BILL BOWMAN MSP