My experience this week with GPs was good. I have a few hard skin growths that look innocuous but have got to the stage where it would be best to get shot of them. I've had similar before. I rang the surgery in the morning and told them what I wanted to discuss with my named doctor. They said he was out that day but that I'd be better to see Dr Hesford who is a dermatology specialist. They gave me an appointment for 5.10pm that day. Spent 5 minutes with her and I now have an appointment with the surgery for 11th December to have the growths removed. As it's nothing urgent that seems like a good result to me.
One of the reasons the GP surgeries in the UK are under pressure and sometimes it takes a while to see a named doctor is that a lot of appointments are missed with no advance warning from the person concerned. I remember seeing the numbers for our previous surgery and they shocked me. Surprisingly, no data is collected for total missed GP appointments in the UK. A figure of 14 million a year out of a total of 380 million has been quoted in various places but no-one seems to have the evidence for this.
