We had 3 doctor surgeries in our town, my GP decided to retire, so they closed his practice and 3000 patients had to move to the other 2. 'We can cope' they said, now you cant get an appointment for love nor money, unless they have a cancellation when you happen to call.
I havent eaten anything for over 24hrs now and my bs levels are 11.9. I have said before, Im a dog walker and have already walked around 5 miles today and its had no effect.
Sorry to hear that your gp retired and that you had to find another Practice to go to.
First off, if you have a blood test form given to you then you should not be reliant upon just your gp practice to take your bloods... There should be other places that can do this, depending where you live of course. In my practice we get a list of at least 3 other places that we can have our bloods taken without appointments.
Your practice should be able to give you details by phoning them of the other places available to get your bloods taken.
The results will go back to your Practice in the same way and you are entitled to go in there and ask the receptionist for a print out.
Also, ask if your practice do online bookings, if you aren't currently registered, and if they do it, then you must go into see the receptionist and they should give you a piece of paper to take away with you to set up at home. This does not stop you telephoning or booking appts in person. What it does do is give you really, really good access to book apointments. Less than 11% of patients are registered to get online appts across the country and the GP's are targetted to get at least 20% of their patients online by April 2015. Everybody that signs up at our Practice is staggered at the availabilty of appts compared to telephoning etc. you cannot get apprs currently with nurses via internet bookings.
Finally find out if your Practice has a PPG (patients participation group) - this should be on the Practice website and do a nicely termed moan to the Chairperson requesting that they ensure as in their terms of reference that your personal details are not actually given. State nicely that you are being given inaccurate advice on acceptable levels of blood glucose levels (you would have to quote NICE guidelines and what you have been told), tell them nicely of your exasperation at trying to get appointments and exact details. Tell them of the new CQC inspections taking place that are measuring GP's on whether Practices are a) are they safe b) are they effective c) are they caring d) are they responsive and e) are they well led - and that from your current experiences from being a new Patient that they are failing on all aspects.
You should be able to look at your GP practice website to see if they have a PPG.
PM me if you need any further advice.