How do general practices manage requests from patients for 'same-day' appointments? A questionnaire survey.

Same-day appointment requests are common and can be problematic for general practices that run appointment systems. In a questionnaire survey sent to 90 general practices in one health authority area (response rate 88%), a variety of management systems existed for dealing with same-day appointment requests. Managing the requests was found to be a significant cause of stress for many general practitioners. Registrars, locums, and practice nurses play only a small part in meeting patient demands and few practices operate telephone triage to help manage these requests.