The parents of a newborn baby in Midlothian say they have been forced to drive to their local GP practice as they can't get an appointment over the phone.
Eddie and Roxana, from the Bilson area, claim they once phoned Loanhead Medical Practice over 100 times at 8.30am in an attempt to speak with the receptionist and book an appointment for their two-month old baby boy.
As well as struggling to get through to the practice, dad Eddie, 33, says they were given a week and a half's supply of special baby formula, as their son is allergic to cow milk, instead of a full month's supply.
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With the parents down to their last two portions and due to go on holiday in the next few weeks, Eddie has raised concerns over how the practice have handled their needs and say their level of care is "embarrassing."
Speaking to Edinburgh Live, a frustrated Eddie said: "They ask you to phone first thing in the morning at 8.30am to get an appointment, but imagine trying to do that when you have been up all night with the baby until 6am.
"There used to be a queue system so that when you called you would be given a number and eventually it would go down, but now any time you call it just says the line is busy. If you phone at 8.29am it says they are closed and bang on 8.30am they are busy.
"Our son has an allergy to cow milk and needs to be seen by a GP to administer a special type of formula. This has gone on for several weeks and last week, me and my partner both tried phoning every second for over 40 minutes, on separate phones. It was over 100 calls and we never got through once.
"I ended up having to drive from our house to the practice and demand an appointment which is crazy. When we were eventually seen by a doctor, he prescribed a month's supply of special formula for our son and sent it off to our pharmacy in Roslin."
However, when Eddie turned up to collect, he realised it was only a week and a half's worth of medication instead of a full month as previously stated. As the milk has to be prescribed, Eddie or his partner Roxana, 34, can't go out and buy it.
Marketing director Eddie also claims that several prescriptions, written by the GP, did not include his son's full details or name, so the pharmacy could not process it until they clarified all the necessary details.
He continued: "Baby's need to be fed, we can't just buy the formula ourselves and now we only have two days of milk left before I'm supposed to go and pick up more tomorrow, but who knows if it'll be ready.
"It shouldn't be this hard to see a doctor or get the correct prescription.
"One of the prescriptions was then sent to a different pharmacy in Loanhead and when I went to pick it up they had the address but not our baby's name or date of birth.
"It's the GP's fault for not sending enough through to the pharmacy and it takes even longer as most pharmacies don't stock this type of formula, it has to be ordered in.
"We're about to go on holiday so I wanted to make sure we're not left short. When I spoke with someone at the practice, they said it should be enough for a month."
Eddie claims he has driven to the practice three or four times to speak with them instead of waiting hours on the phone to get an appointment and was reportedly told by a receptionist that they were "busy" as a result of the recent bank holiday that is why he can't get through to anyone on the phone.
"They claimed it was due to the bank holiday but when I turned up they were all sitting having a laugh with each other, not one of them looked rushed of their feet," Eddie added.
He also says a neighbour of his also shared his concerns over the appointment system in place and says the whole ordeal kicked off fairly recently, with no such issues in the past.
Loanhead Medical Practice declined to comment on the matter. The Health and Social Care Partnership for Scotland were approached for comment.
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