New form-filling way to get a GP Appointment

[Ross365]

Just before Christmas my surgery launched it's new website which demands that you fill out an on screen form to request a GO appointment. I'll look at getting a screen shot of it, but I feel I need to proceed with care.

Now, some of you may already have this, but if you don't have it, the you probably will have soon.

This website has been developed at the request of a number of NHS Foundations with the idea that it will be used by all the GP's within their control. It is undoubtedly intends to put a huge obstacle in the way of anyone wanting an appointment. For older people, with poor IT skills, this will be dreadful.

Instead of giving you an ID number, you will need to type in every detail of every bit of info about you; your full name DoB, phone, emails, postcode etc etc an do this every time you log in. The attached screen capture is just a very small part of it

 

[Tangledfeet]

We've had a similar system up here for a while, but at least it's a system for which you require a login and password and all your details are saved, so at least you don't have to go through the rigmarole of entering all your details each and every time; it's also integrated with the repeat prescription requests.

I agree that it is not ideal for those not IT literate or online but would hope that there is an alternative for them...

One alternative might be to speak to NHS 24 and they can, if needed, get your GP to call you.

 

[My Old Landy]

We use the ask my gp app here for appointments. Very efficient. They can then triage the requests and you get the care you need. Yes you fill in a form at the beginning but we did that over a year ago and have not had to fill in anything since.

 

[addjunkie]

Just before Christmas my surgery launched it's new website which demands that you fill out an on screen form to request a GO appointment. I'll look at getting a screen shot of it, but I feel I need to proceed with care.

Now, some of you may already have this, but if you don't have it, the you probably will have soon.

This website has been developed at the request of a number of NHS Foundations with the idea that it will be used by all the GP's within their control. It is undoubtedly intends to put a huge obstacle in the way of anyone wanting an appointment. For older people, with poor IT skills, this will be dreadful.

Instead of giving you an ID number, you will need to type in every detail of every bit of info about you; your full name DoB, phone, emails, postcode etc etc an do this every time you log in. The attached screen capture is just a very small part of it

View attachment 379448

Ours is similar, again saved details.
I agree about poor it skills too. But what it seems to do is make it easier to get an appointment for us.

Is this not you showing off your “Im a dinosaur skill set”. I know I often have to stop myself ranting at some of the modern ways.

 

[Kayos]

I have used online booking for years, sadly have to book video calls now due to people just booking them for essentially nothing

Much better than calling at 8am and can often get a same day appointment, without being on hold for 3 hours

I'm a fan of modern tech, I will let those who don't like it continue to drive things the old fashioned way

 

[Ross365]

Is this not you showing off your “Im a dinosaur skill set”. I know I often have to stop myself ranting at some of the modern ways.

I think I qualify as a grumpy old man, but... as people are saying above, it is surely not necessary to enter name, postcode, dob, phone number, email etc every time somebody logs on. The more stuff needs typing, the more chance for errors. I see this as an obstacle more than anything else. Furthermore it will be an obstacle to a specific group of people; people with poor "IT" skills and that must include older people, but also, people with limited education, who are there doing the jobs that most of use don't want to do, but pay the tax and NI in full !!! The nay mistakes I made in typing this wer all flagged up by the spell checker.

 

[addjunkie]

I think I qualify as a grumpy old man, but... as people are saying above, it is surely not necessary to enter name, postcode, dob, phone number, email etc every time somebody logs on. The more stuff needs typing, the more chance for errors. I see this as an obstacle more than anything else. Furthermore it will be an obstacle to a specific group of people; people with poor "IT" skills and that must include older people, but also, people with limited education, who are there doing the jobs that most of use don't want to do, but pay the tax and NI in full !!! The nay mistakes I made in typing this wer all flagged up by the spell checker.

I dont disagree, and I know our practice does still help the old folk etc and take phone calls from the oldies. But in our modern world, not just at the doctors, but benefits, banking, insurance etc, it is now almost a disability to not be IT literate.

 

[MysterG]

Had a text from our surgery just before Christmas saying they were changing the app they used. One day before they swapped.....

Old app was okay, tended to ask questions and not give the right answer as an option to reply but always got an appointment at the end of it. Better than waiting on hold for ages.

MIL doesn't do IT though so she would be stuffed if her surgery adopted it exclusively.

Not had call to try the new app yet.

 

[Keith 66]

The one thing that pleases me about this unnecessary rush to put everything online is that those advocating it & implementing it will get old themselves & as they too become unable to use the technology due to infirmity or dementia or memory loss they will find themselves in the same boat as those they ridiculed & belittled.
Our doctors surgery is barely functioning now, I have seen the receptionists simply ignore a phone call for 20 minutes, Im sure they get trained specifically to do this!

 

[bricol]

My mums has it - its an option, you can still call. As I do on her behalf.

As I've said before, a doctor who came out to her, in the course of the conversation while waiting for test things to develop, it came up there are three practices is in the group - smallest is 15,000 patients.

With the best will in the world, they aren't going to be able to answer the phone first ring to even a small percentage of that! and then subsequently deal with those as patients immediately.

Gone are the days of a few people sat on benches in the back room of the house the two doctors used as a practice, each of you going in as you worked out who was next - which was how that same practice operated when I was a kid in 1978.

 

[rtcosic]

I get irritated by this linking of Luddite approaches to 'IT' and old age.

My late Mum got her laptop as an 80th birthday present from her grandsons. After a relatively few lessons, she was off downloading recipes from the BBC Good Food site and browsing her WI page. She quite quickly advanced to online banking with surprisingly little handholding. She happily used Amazon. I'm sure she would have mastered online grocery shopping if she had lived long enough to hit the COVID period. Admittedly she needed help with the annual Compare the Meerkat dance for utility and insurance, but that was more about understanding the differences between offers than using the applications.

I was introduced to using the Chip and PIN feature of credit and debit cards by one of SWMBO's fellow knit and natter members, Mrs P.
I first met Mrs P at her 100th birthday party.

I am a volunteer driver and shuttle little old ladies (mainly) to medical appointments. Most are quite comfortable using 'IT' for appointments, online banking, grocery shopping and Amazon etc. Those that aren't don't even carry a mobile telephone.

.. unable to use the technology due to infirmity or dementia or memory loss...

Many of those folks would need help with a telephone system or even pencil and paper.

The concern is more about income to afford a cheap laptop/PC and broadband connection and then attitude rather than age and/or infirmity I think.

I relish the day the GP's surgery goes over to online booking. Our current village surgery is excellent. Our previous one was one of those insisting on telephone queues from 08:00 and only accepting appointments for today, then moaned that people didn't hang on the phone all morning to cancel appointments!

 

[MysterG]

I relish the day the GP's surgery goes over to online booking. Our current village surgery is excellent. Our previous one was one of those insisting on telephone queues from 08:00 and only accepting appointments for today, then moaned that people didn't hang on the phone all morning to cancel appointments!

Our surgery used to have online booking. It was great.
They deactivated it during Covid and went back to not answering phones instead.
They then introduced the first App which was okay, and have now swapped to a new app.
No indication that the online booking system will ever be reactivated, you have to have access to a smartphone to use the app now.

I have to reset the time on my MILs basic mobile twice a year, and add new contacts for her etc.. No, not all old people are incapable of using new technology but ....

 

[Ross365]

Something I've notes with quite a few older firends; in couple one is sometime quite tech savy and the other kmowes nothing ar all about it. Don't think I know of an older couple where both are tech savy.

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

I used to pay for my appointments on jersey. £40. £20 if asked for a return visit. That included any prescriptions.

Never had any issue getting appointments at a time I could work around and the doctors was never filled with people who didn't need to be there.

 

[Nomad]

I'm fighting technology a lot recently, I have an iPhone and an Android phone (personal + business), and a Windows laptop that I use for most things apart from calls / messages / taking photos.
All are older models but work fine and do everything I want from them.

In the past couple of months I've had problems with a few online systems :
Banking tell me I need to install an app. My iPhone is basic and already full with apps / stuff so says it doesn't have enough space for another app. I've deleted everything I don't regularly use. I need to buy an new (expensive) phone to replace the working one I have? The app won't install on my Android phone.
Booking travel tickets. An app I've been happily using for years got upgraded recently, Now I need to update both phones before it will install. My phones are updated as far as they can be, to update further I need to buy newer phones to replace ...
Automated telephone systems (council, dentist, doctors) - I've given using these after far too many hours wasted on hold or going around a loop of automated "press button 1 for this, button 2 for ..."

I'm also dealing with slightly older friends and family who simply don't / won't / can't use modern technology. I found out recently a bright intelligent friend - who I have had technology discussions in the past - relies on his wife for basic tasks, I watched as he asked her to enter their new network password on his laptop at home as he found it "too complicated".

When I was still a boy, my school got their first (shared) computer in 1980s. I took their computer studies exams and have a career lasting several decades in the IT industry and am very technically minded and even I find the new systems very frustrating
I object to being pressurised into buying newer and "better" technology when there's nothing wrong with what I have.

Most people now aged 60+ will have finished school before computers were introduced and many struggle with the technology, others of all ages have problems with the new way of doing things (poor memory = unable to remember passwords or what buttons to press, general "old age")
We are heading to a society where anyone not online and comfortable with newer systems will find it difficult to live a normal life.

 

[Morrisman]

My daughter used that same app in Nottingham, but it was impossible to get an appointment, there simply weren't enough available in each day.

I was in my local GP yesterday, sorting out a messed up prescription. The place was empty, not. a soul in the waiting room. No cars outside, the receptionist said she would have to ring the GP to get him to sort the prescription. Sounds like there were no GPs in either.

Maybe they simply all work from home now?

I'm dreading getting old.

 

[bricol]

My 85 yr old mum struggles with cordless phones, more than four channels on the TV, the heating control . . .mobiles, no chance. Smart phones . . . you're having a laugh Been the same for 30 yrs.

GP has arranged an appt at a local clinic - letter turned up late due to the strikes, so she missed it . . . she rang them, so bearing in mind she's hard of hearing, when they asked if it was an NHS appt or private, she misheard and later on, I got a rant about who's paying for it, she never agreed etc etc . . .I think she hung up in disgust . . . when all she had to do was say "NHS" and you get put through to a nice lady who sorts it all out - as I did when I rang to try to untangle it all.

Some of the elderly get confused either due to decreasing faculties, or not hearing correctly, forgetting things etc.

Bound to be me in 30 odd yrs time . . .

 

[Chippie]

It really infuriates me the so-called helpful advances in tech.
We went to Holland in Oct last yr.decided to get another credit card that doesn’t charge for use abroad. Got the one from Virgin, but to activate it you needed to do so via an app on phone…No smart phone so no app,so no credit card…I cancelled it on line via their website, stating doesn’t meet my requirements…
I get really ****** off with the younger generation when they say it will make life easier…..but for who?

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

It really infuriates me the so-called helpful advances in tech.
We went to Holland in Oct last yr.decided to get another credit card that doesn’t charge for use abroad. Got the one from Virgin, but to activate it you needed to do so via an app on phone…No smart phone so no app,so no credit card…I cancelled it on line via their website, stating doesn’t meet my requirements…
I get really ****** off with the younger generation when they say it will make life easier…..but for who?

why these companies cant provide a webapp is beyond me. just data harvesting i assume.

 

[gaz1]

I dont agree on digital by default for everything

not everyone is competant to use the digital side of it and certaily not to be safe to be online with it

whilst tech has its uses its not for everyone

its wrong to force the older ones onto the internet that dont know how to use the internet and that also goes for the mid age band as well as the younger end

many have the click on anything attitude and with credit cards you can be frauded really easily whilst this gov does nothing to protect you and neither do the banks

is the internet safe for the general population, no its not

is it safe for your children no
might be at school behind there child protected internet but certainly not on a normal internet service at home