Worried about seeing your GP?

Should have said in my earlier post, the Practice Manager also said because they were booking appointments up to 4 weeks ahead, (which failed the targets, guidelines etc) the result was many people then didn’t keep their appointments (and didn’t cancel them either).

They either ‘recovered’, or simply forgot they had made an appointment.

🤷‍♀️

A friend of mine who was a consultant radiologist retired rather than jump through the hoops the NHS wanted. She had many sleepless nights about it.

I always seem to see paramedics. They are good but seem to jump to dramatic conclusions as to what is wrong I would love to see my old GP

TinSoldier

This what I am reading:

The Return to Practice (RtP) programme is designed for General Practitioners (GPs) who have previously been on the General Medical Council (GMC) GP Register and England Medical Performers List (MPL) and would like to return to work in general practice after a break in their career, raising a family or time spent working abroad.

^The programme offers personalised pathways based on the individual needs of each returning GP. It has been developed in partnership with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) and British Medical Association (BMA).

If you had only been out of general practice for a short time before returning, one would assume your pathway would not be as long as someone who has been out of action for a longer period.

I read this too and seemingly it is not a 'one size fits all' training programme, it is tailored to the candidates specific needs. There is also financial assistance available too.

Am I alone in feeling a bit uneasy about this thread?

Mirren, would it not be more appropriate for you to take up this issue with the GMC? I can't see how appealing to posters on Gransnet to contact their MP, with only the sketchiest of information, is appropriate. I can appreciate that you are upset about your situation but continuing professional education is a reality and a necessity for all professions. I would also suggest that describing a return to practice course as "retraining" is wildly inaccurate.

Mirren

If you are worried about not being able to get a GP appointment then you are going to love this one.
I am a GP ... after 40 successfully safe years, I retired...age 61 ,in 2018
2020 ,along came Covid and Boris asking for help from retired medical personnel!
I responded and restarted in a new practice in August 2020.
I only work 2 sessions weekly but I am 68.
I have loved being back..I only retired due to the organisational bureau where I worked
I have now worked, safely, successfully, happily for almost 4 years.
Now , our wonderful Government have decided to stop the " Emergency measures " that Covid prompted. .
I have been informed that, unless I engage with a " Return to Practice scheme " which is ,basically, retraining..then I must stop working as a doctor on March 13th.
I love being a doctor, I love my patients, I am a very good doctor. In my very long career I have never had a single complaint.
Now, when we are so short of GPs the powers that be have decided that I must cease the work the work I love.
You just couldn't make this up ,could you???
I am distraught!
Should anyone feel like writing to your MP , please, feel free!!!!

Mirren, can I copy what you’ve written if I take out the more personal comments eg your age? I’ll then write to my MP.

You are not alone in feeling uneasy, Calipso. For a GP not to undertake continuing professional development (as it was called in the legal profession) is positively dangerous and it concerns me that Mirren, of all people, cannot see that. Saying you have never had a complaint and that you love your patients is not enough. If I had told the Law Society that I had never had a complaint and loved my clients do you think that would have enabled me to bypass the need to prove that I had undertaken x hours of continuing professional development during the past year and get my practising certificate renewed? No way - and I was only responsible for money, not lives.

biglouis read the link above about the 13 courses someone hoping to return to work as a GP had to go through. I am willing to bet that those are compulsory whether you have an 'individual' pathway or not.

If I were to write to my MP about my GP, it would be to complain that I can't get an appointment and a serious misdiagnosis when my breast cancer symptoms were dismissed by a GP who hadn't been trained to spot lobular breast cancer. I investigated making a formal complaint, but decided in the end that I didn't have the energy to go through with it and nothing would undo the result of the delay in being treated. However, just because I didn't complain doesn't mean that I was satisfied with the GP's dismissive attitude.

Growstuff you have illustrated my point perfectly. I’m sorry that you had to go through that experience.

MayBee70
You could send your MP the link I posted. In that link the Dr is named.

I think anyone returning to a profession can expect to do a refresher course things move very quickly these days.
Though one would hope how long they worked originally would be taken into account. The course and length of retraining being tailored to their needs.

I agree with your comments Bella23 it is no reflection on the person's abilities but the fact that things change so quickly.

I am a GP ... after 40 successfully safe years, I retired...age 61.
How did you get to be a GP at 14? I thought it took 7 years at least because you need a medical degree which takes 5 years, plus 2 years GP training?

I mean, how did you start training at 14?

How very strange …

Even stranger when a GP can't spell practising correctly on this thread?

Hmmm … and ‘organisational bureau’.

I’m still struggling with the idea that a GP wouldn’t recognise how vital it is to keep up to date, how quickly things change. I know that only too well from law - daily updates to read - so can’t imagine having been away from medicine for two years, returning and then balking at a requirement for a ‘returner’ scheme.

This is what the OP was talking about - see the section about those who obtained temporary emergency registration during covid. The date by which they have to contact the GMC about a returner’s course is 30 March, not 13 March as OP claimed. This seems to me an entirely sensible requirement.
www.rcgp.org.uk/your-career/returning-to-gp

Methinks the OP needs quite a bit of re training, to get things right not just in medicine.

One of ‘those threads’ then.
I also picked up on the ‘40 years a GP and retired at 61’ comment.

I hope nobody is writing to their GP based on what the OP has said. It might have been expedient to have retired doctors returning at the height of the pandemic, but I don’t want to see a GP who isn’t up to date, however much they love their job and their patients. I always take a lack of complaints with a pinch of salt - as in law, it might years for a mistake to become evident.

So is there going to be an enquiry into how many people died during the pandemic because they were treated by doctors who weren’t fit to be treating them

It was an emergency measure. The GMC has, rightly in my view, that those who returned under the emergency measure must, if they want to continue working after 30 March, undertake whatever refresher course they consider appropriate. If I had returned to the law under some emergency measure two years after retiring, and continued to work for upwards of another four years afterwards without the Law Society considering my fitness to practise, would you feel confident to have me working for you? Likewise a doctor, although I could only lose you your money, not your life, if I made a mistake.

Joseann

^I am a GP ... after 40 successfully safe years, I retired...age 61.^
How did you get to be a GP at 14? I thought it took 7 years at least because you need a medical degree which takes 5 years, plus 2 years GP training?

I am a GP ... after 40 successfully safe years, I retired...age 61 ,in 2018
2020 ,along came Covid and Boris asking for help from retired medical personnel!
^I responded and restarted in a new practice in August 2020.
I only work 2 sessions weekly but I am 68.^

The arithmetic seems wrong here somehow, as well.

Ah well, perhaps it's typos 🙂