In order to get an appointment, you have to compete in a sort of 'health game show' organised by the staff. Here are the rules:
You have to ring in after 12 pm on any given day. If the appointments are all taken (almost always they will be), you have to ring in after 12 pm the next day to try again. If you work, good luck, because I usually have to ring after 1 pm because of work, and by that time there are no appointments. I've rung as early as 12:15pm and been told there were none.
Now, you might be thinking, as was I, "Why can't I just book an appointment for the future? A few weeks away maybe? That's fine, right?" Not at all. This IS the system for booking those appointments. According to the guy on the phone, daily bookings are for 'two to three weeks'. I asked him to explain this, and he said that if I was able to secure an appointment on the 24th July, I would be booking from the 31st July onward. I mean, that's a week, so I have no idea how that connects to the 'two to three weeks' thing, but he seemed annoyed at having to explain even that much, so I gave up.
You wouldn't need to be actually sick or anything, or you'd probably be dead by the time you got seeing anyone. read more