Okay, I have at best a love-hate relationship with doctors. As
I am, luckily, generally fairly healthy. This means that I tend only to go to the doctor's once every six months or so to get a repeat prescription for my chosen contraceptive method. It's completely routine and, because I'm not actually ill, I prefer not to miss work for such an appointment. I therefore ask for an early morning appointment so I can go straight on to work afterwards.
A while back - couple of years, maybe? - the surgery with whom I am currently registered changed their appointment procedures so that it was no longer possible to book an appointment more than seven days in advance. Not surprisingly I found this less convenient, and told them so, but was fobbed off with some waffle about how it was to better implement 'Government guidelines'. (The guidelines concerned are supposed to ensure that anyone who wants one can get an appointment within 48 hours.)
This has more or less worked to date, but when I rang up the surgery this morning to make an appointment for next week, I found that they'd moved the goalposts again. Now, apparently, one cannot prebook an appointment except for the day on which you call, which means that getting an early-morning appointment will be well-nigh impossible. I can only assume that they no longer want to deal with any routine stuff at all. Well, it's worked for me; I now have an appointment with a family planning clinic closer to where I currently live, one evening this week.
I'm so looking forward to this; we can have the "Have you considered other methods of contraception?" conversation (yes, and between self and
Rowr.