My GP sent me a text message on 11th September asking me to book an appointment in two months time for a follow-up blood test and provided a link to do so. I followed the link, but the system wouldn’t allow me to book anything that far ahead. Six weeks appeared to be the limit.
I waited a little over two weeks to when it should allow me to make the booking, but the link turns out to be time-limited and has now expired so I can’t book anything that way.
I have just phoned the surgery to book instead, to be told that even they can’t book a blood test for the second week of November at the moment and I’ll have to call them back in a couple of weeks to sort it out.
I wonder what the odds are on all the appointments being taken by then?
The NHS is a truly brilliant organisation. It’s wonderful that someone can slip with the butter knife and slice their arm off, or trip and fall backwards onto a vacuum cleaner attachment whilst cleaning the house naked, and receive treatment without needing to take out a second mortgage or risk being declared bankrupt. How we have ended up in a situation where no-one is able to book me an appointment at my GP’s request to verify that a course of treatment is not causing a negative impact on other aspects of my health however is genuinely bizarre.
(Not that I’ve spent a lot of time there recently, but I was quite impressed that the person I spoke to on the phone knew it was me calling before I’d even finished explaining the problem 😀