Is there a need for GP surgeries to be open 7 days a week?

If GPs were open 7 days a week, maybe people wouldn't be waiting so long for a doctor's appointment. The last time I needed an appointment, I had to wait a week for one.

Interesting points. I wonder if those complaining they cannot see a doctor for X amount of weeks would prefer to see more resource during the traditional hours rather than extra spend for weekend hours?

If you are not willing to take a short amount of time off work to see the GP then it is probably about something not important anyway. Opening on saturdays will increase the amount of unnecessary appointments by people who work. Furthermore by working on a saturday that GP wont be working on a weekday instead, this therefore wont help with waiting times for appointments. If you have an emergency like a heart attack you should be going to a&e not a gp whether thats a weekend or a weekday.

Less low-skilled immigration would help this issue. Less people using the doctor=less hours surgeries need to be open for!

Um have you ever worked, unless you have a sympathetic employer they will refuse you and even if they let you you can get called into HR for excessive time off as they think you are skiving.

I had a friend with bad diabetes who was refused breaks from his manager which were required for insulin or to keep his blood sugar up, even when he fainted at work they forced him to continue only when he collapsed and had to spend a week in hospital did they help.

They even refused him time off to see doctors at the hospital knowing he has diabetes and heart problems.



When I was at the hospital last year I arrived about 30 minutes early for an appointment and ended up actually getting served 5 minutes after the appointment time.

The reason? a Polish woman who spoke NO English needed everything translated from her name, date of birth, and had to ask singular dates of availability, or even with the translator kept saying "I dont understand"

Meanwhile a queue of people were behind me late for appointments due to her.

Sounds illegal to prevent you from taking your insulin, it only takes 2 mins to do, do they stop you going to the toilet aswell?

The issue there is the employer, no one needs to be seeing their GP every week so there should be no restrictions in taking time off for health reasons.

Fix the issue which is the employer. This applied to anything, always fix the route cause of the problem not trying to reduce the effect of the problem eg by opening gp's on weekends

My friend used to tell his employer (one of the supermarket chains) of his hospital appointments like a month in advance and tell them to work their shifts around that and was told "no special treatement"

My old employer was a call centre so used to time your breaks to toilet and if you had too many discipline you.

Employers now know they can get away with things due to desperate staff.

In my area it's 1 whole month to wait for an appointment. Before about 5 years ago before the Tories I could just walk into a GP and been seen pretty much the same day.It's the same in every public sector place such as the council it takes absolute ages to sort stuff out because of the cuts.

As per the Equalities Act, this treatment is actually illegal. They'd soon be in serious trouble if something serious happened to him.

I'm seriously considering changing GP surgery. As wonderful as it is having a surgery 50 meters from me, having to wait over a week just for an apointment is becoming bloody ridiculous.

I think later openings on weekdays is more better than sunday openings.