A new Doctors appointment system.

My wife went to the hospital last week for various tests and when she left she was told to make an appointment with her own doctor to add extra items to her prescription. So we went to the doctor's surgery on our way home to make the appointment.

I’m sorry said the receptionist you cannot make an appointment for next week. You have to call the surgery on the day and the doctor will call you back to make the appointment. They said doctors now make all their own appointments? Why?

It is fairly obvious to me this is a silly idea and isn't going to work properly, but we decided to go along with it, so on the day we tried to call the surgery. Well it’s a well known fact that it is difficult to get through on the phone early in the day, so we were trying for about 45 minutes before we got through to reception. They noted our number and said the doctor will call back later. They didn’t say how much later, so we are now stuck at home waiting for the call. About three hours later we called back to see if we were still on the list and were told we were. The doctor called later and said she hadn’t got the results from the hospital but would chase them up and call on the following day. (Well that’s one morning wasted)

So we waited on the following day from 8:30 to 11:45 and then called the surgery, They said doctor will be calling shortly. Well two hours later, after we had been out on to do essential tasks we called back at the surgery, and told them that despite having our home and mobile no’s no-one had called. They said according to our records the doctor called but couldn’t get a reply. We told them that my wife had sat by the phone all morning and no doctor had called. The surgery said the doctor had now gone home. Now bearing in mind my wife’s condition is worsened by stress, this is not the kind of service we would expect. Furthermore my wife had not ordered her repeat prescriptions on line as she was expecting to see a doctor, so she had now run out of her regular medication.

Fortunately another doctor was on the premises and she was allowed to see him to get the repeat prescriptions we needed to tide us over until the hospital letter gets to the doctor.

Can anyone explain why Doctors now have to make their own appointments, as I have been told it is to meet new government targets?

I cannot see why I suddenly cannot book a non urgent appointment with my doctor a few days in advance after this system has worked well for years.