Well my experence was for intial appointments you had to phone at 8 am. Even if you were on the dot the appointments were always booked. I have a bigoted opinion that there was a list that got input at 07:59 that was all old folk and kids.
You then had a second stab at 2pm on the so called emergency line. Which is the only way I ever managed to get seen.
You would have thought that it would be quicker seeing the nurse, nope the 4 of them are maxed weeks in advance.
From what I can tell female problems get expidited they just turn up in reception and burst into tears. My last medical issue 2 years ago was a inflamed epidimus. I was walking like John Wayne got the intial visit on the emergency line and got some antibiotics, phoned back saying it was getting worse and got an appointment 4 days later and no sooner and no they wouldn't phone me with a cancellation. In the end it was sod this and tried to go to A&E. Car park was miles away and when I stopped for a rest I discovered I was outside the GUM clinic. Thought they would know a bit about bollocks. I was seen by a consultant within 45 mins. Ultrasound, free drugs and even seen outside walk in clinic hours.
Got a right talking to by the witch on the desk when I phoned up to cancel my appointment. Which I found out later was to do with self referal statistic's appartently your not ment to mention you have already seen your GP if you then visit the hospital. The consultant had apperently written a snot o gram the day he treated me.
If the system had actually meant you could see a doc inside 48hours it would be great, in my experence it just meant that the doc's had a system available so you might get an appointment. There was no system to track how many people actually asked for an appointment to be refused.
Blokes aged 20-50 get a second class service and if you are usefully employed it goes down to third class.