"Difficulty getting a GP appointment"

It has become increasingly difficult to organise a GP appointment. Over the last couple of years, the process for requesting a routine GP appointment has changed.

To have a chance at getting an appointment, patients would often wait outside the surgery before it opened in the morning to make an appointment then, or call in first thing and request one. 

They changed this to using an online form instead. Patients were no longer able to queue up to make an appointment in the morning, and phone calls were only for same day urgent care. This wouldn't have been a problem, however the online form was only available for a limited time in the morning and would often fill up within the first 30 minutes of the day, resulting in patients being unable to get in contact to organise an appointment for several days in a row. This caused a lot of frustration and staff were having to spend more time dealing with complaints. 

Recently, an app has been introduced where patients are able to request routine appointments and request repeat prescriptions or sick lines. This app suffers from the same issues as the online form did, where if you are unable to complete the request for a routine appointment within the first 30 minutes of the day, you receive a message saying they are full for the day and to try again tomorrow. 

For too long it has been increasingly difficult to access GP appointments for routine care. This has caused and extended the time myself and other patients have been in pain, allowed conditions to worsen, and resulted in unnecessary stress. I understand that a lot of GP practices are in the same position, but the the recent changes to the system have only added to the problems and increased the difficulty in accessing care.