"GP appointments system unfit for purpose"

I am a registered patient at Aylesham Health Centre, and I feel the surgery has become unfit for purpose and unable to fulfill the service they should provide to their patients, due to a policy of only allowing a very small number of pre - bookable to be made days in advance.

It is left for all and sundry to fight for an appointment by calling the booking line / reception at 8am to try and get an appointment for that day! This is closer to a rugby scrum than anything else, the front doors of the practice open at 8am and the telephone lines open at 8am and people will be sat on the doorstep trying to beat the telephone calls to get an appointment.

As a caller you become unimportant because the two inbound telephone lines cannot cope with the strain of the calls, both numbers will be engaged for comfortably 10 minutes in which time all of the appointments would have gone.

This has in turn forced me and many others to report to minor injuries units and A & Es to solve what could and should have been done in a 5 minute consultation with your family doctor.

This is beyond unacceptable and I hope isn't a blueprint for every other surgery in East Kent.