Prior to this morning, I genuinely cannot remember the last time I visited my doctor; it’s been at least two or three years and probably longer. Visiting the doctor of course is not like going to the dentist or having your eyesight checked – these are periodic check-ups that get diarised. You only ever go to the doctor when you are poorly. Fortunately for me, that is not very often.
Today, after a few weeks of indecision, I decided that I had to get my act together and book an appointment - the process was so annoying that I could feel a blog entry coming on even as my stress levels went up.
To book an appointment at my surgery in Daventry you have to call the appointment line. This is only available from 8am (a time incidentally that I am on my way to work in Milton Keynes). When 8 o’clock arrives the switchboard no doubts lights up with the efforts of all those contestants trying their luck. This leaves many, myself included, repeatedly listening to the engaged message (which is annoying – you dial before 8am you get a message saying the line isn’t open, you dial at 8am on the dot and the line is engaged).
When I finally got a ringing tone (instead of an engaged tone) I felt a small rush of adrenaline – success!
The appointment line is automated and the first thing you have to do is select an option, in my case 1 for appointments. My anger levels spiked when having got this far the ringing tone sounded for another 30 seconds before the system gave me the following message “The system is unable to connect your call, please try later” and then promptly cut me off. Aaaaaaagggggghhhhhhh!
“Hero to zero” and back to repeated dialling followed by engaged tones.
Many would just give up but the problem is that if you leave your call until later, there is no chance of getting an appointment at all.
So the calling lottery continued and I finally was able to talk to a human (after selecting option 1).
Me: “Can I book an appointment?”
The receptionist:“No, we are only seeing emergency cases today, we are a doctor down”
Me: “Can I book an appointment for tomorrow?”
The receptionist:“No, the appointments for tomorrow will only be released tomorrow morning; you’ll have to call at 8am”
Now at this point I was feeling frustrated.
It was time for a different approach - I described my issue and then asked if I could see a nurse instead. That was obviously the right thing to do, the minor illness clinic then got mentioned and a visiting slot was then allocated. Hallelujah!
It’s a good thing that I asked though because the receptionist didn’t offer the alternative without prompting.
The final irony – it took me 15 minutes of frantic/stressful dialling, 90 minutes of driving to and from the surgery, ten minutes waiting for the inevitably delayed appointment and then precisely three minutes and 27 seconds with the nurse! I even spent longer than that queuing for the prescription.
There has to be a better way!
Finally, I am not a fan of automated call management systems but I understand that they are a necessary evil. I can’t abide by a system though that allows callers that have made it through the tollgates to be cut off without ceremony. In the business world, this would justifiably generate a deluge of complaints. And the only reason that the surgery gets away with allocating appointments in such a free-for-all way and utilizing such a crap phone system is that its patients have no choice but to put up with it.
Not great!
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Today, after a few weeks of indecision, I decided that I had to get my act together and book an appointment - the process was so annoying that I could feel a blog entry coming on even as my stress levels went up.
To book an appointment at my surgery in Daventry you have to call the appointment line. This is only available from 8am (a time incidentally that I am on my way to work in Milton Keynes). When 8 o’clock arrives the switchboard no doubts lights up with the efforts of all those contestants trying their luck. This leaves many, myself included, repeatedly listening to the engaged message (which is annoying – you dial before 8am you get a message saying the line isn’t open, you dial at 8am on the dot and the line is engaged).
When I finally got a ringing tone (instead of an engaged tone) I felt a small rush of adrenaline – success!
The appointment line is automated and the first thing you have to do is select an option, in my case 1 for appointments. My anger levels spiked when having got this far the ringing tone sounded for another 30 seconds before the system gave me the following message “The system is unable to connect your call, please try later” and then promptly cut me off. Aaaaaaagggggghhhhhhh!
“Hero to zero” and back to repeated dialling followed by engaged tones.
Many would just give up but the problem is that if you leave your call until later, there is no chance of getting an appointment at all.
So the calling lottery continued and I finally was able to talk to a human (after selecting option 1).
Me: “Can I book an appointment?”
The receptionist:“No, we are only seeing emergency cases today, we are a doctor down”
Me: “Can I book an appointment for tomorrow?”
The receptionist:“No, the appointments for tomorrow will only be released tomorrow morning; you’ll have to call at 8am”
Now at this point I was feeling frustrated.
It was time for a different approach - I described my issue and then asked if I could see a nurse instead. That was obviously the right thing to do, the minor illness clinic then got mentioned and a visiting slot was then allocated. Hallelujah!
It’s a good thing that I asked though because the receptionist didn’t offer the alternative without prompting.
The final irony – it took me 15 minutes of frantic/stressful dialling, 90 minutes of driving to and from the surgery, ten minutes waiting for the inevitably delayed appointment and then precisely three minutes and 27 seconds with the nurse! I even spent longer than that queuing for the prescription.
There has to be a better way!
Finally, I am not a fan of automated call management systems but I understand that they are a necessary evil. I can’t abide by a system though that allows callers that have made it through the tollgates to be cut off without ceremony. In the business world, this would justifiably generate a deluge of complaints. And the only reason that the surgery gets away with allocating appointments in such a free-for-all way and utilizing such a crap phone system is that its patients have no choice but to put up with it.
Not great!
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