Wait times at GP Appointments?
I’d love to hear from the perspectives of anyone who may be a GP or work in a GPs office about how long a patient can be waiting for their gp appointment even when they arrive early or on time for their time slot?
I’m aware that some appointments can run over time and obviously if enough appointments go 3-5 minutes over time then it creates a bigger knock on effect as they day goes on.
But for example, when booking an appointment, how long is a general appointment supposed to be? Because I’ve always only been in there less than 10 minutes, but if everyone is only in there for 5-10 minutes then what is it that can cause big gapped wait times?
I ask now because I’m currently waiting for my appointment which is a minor procedure which will take hopefully only 30 minutes to an hour, I have it organised with work (because I’m literally in the middle of my shift on my hour lunch lol) but my appointment time was 30 minutes ago at the point I’m writing this and I’m still sat here in the waiting room, and I just know I’m going to be here another hour because I think the person who just went in is going in for the same procedure as me 😅
Now I work with the public as well so I’m not necessarily wanting to jump into Karen mode and be self centred because I genuinely do know what it’s like to fall behind and have people waiting but I just want to know like, what is happening behind the scenes? Like it’s a week day and not everyone is always on a day off (or can even get an appointment for their day off) surely they’d be somewhat aware that the people waiting for their appointment might need to be elsewhere or are on a time crunch? Do GPs even try to make up time or do they just not care?
I’d love to hear the staff perspective on this!
(I suppose I’m just going to have to be very apologetic when I do eventually manage to get back to work, and I’ll probably have to make up the time and stay later 💀)