Gp appointments or lack of!!

Deedaa

My daughter's friend isn't a GP but is currently working nights in a hospital where she is the only doctor looking after 70 patients. She doesn't take kindly to suggestions that doctors anywhere are having it easy.

Criticising the system isn’t criticising the health workers because they are as much victims of it as the patients are.

My daughter's friend isn't a GP but is currently working nights in a hospital where she is the only doctor looking after 70 patients. She doesn't take kindly to suggestions that doctors anywhere are having it easy.

practices

I'm so grateful that I belong to a GP practise that is well run. We can ring up and get an appointment the same day, or make an appointment for another day. The whole set up is friendly and helpful.. The staff tell me they really like working there and they stay for years. I wonder why all these practises are so different.. they must all get similar funding..

Someone I know had to take their child to a walk in centre. She had an all over rash and, being new parents they were very concerned ( as would any parent be). They couldn’t get a doctors appointment. When I worked at surgery I would have got a child with a rash straight in with a doctor. Thankfully it was an allergy and just needed antihistamines but I was appalled that they couldn’t get an appointment. Our local surgery no longer accepts ships boxes: something else to add to the list of services that local surgeries no longer provide.

bobbydog24

I think it is disgusting the way GPs have operated since Covid. It’s said GPs are leaving, that’s why you can’t get appointments. So why is it that my surgery has taken on another doctor since Covid yet you can’t get an appointment for weeks. They had it cushy during lockdown, working from home or part time and they don’t want to go back to the old ways of 9-5, 5 days a week. Non of the staff at my practice work full time. I went to my surgery to pick up a blood test form from the receptionist. There was no one in the waiting room at all yet I passed the walk in centre ( in the same building) as I walked in and it was standing room only and a board saying minimum wait 6 hours. I’m 76 and dread being ill.

All I will say is OMG.
I can hardly believe anyone is so rude about doctors who are doing their best., under very difficult circumstances.
My daughter is a doctor and this post, well I can’t say what I think of it because it would be deleted!

Dickens
I know perfectly well about the difficulties in GP practices. My daughter is a GP and as she said during Covid to me I can’t do a vaginal exam over the phone. She did the vaginal exam with improper PPE because there was insufficient of it available at that time. I understand about the problems in General Practice all too well. However that doesn’t mean that phone appointments are not a good thing, since clearly more patients can be treated during the time available than with face to face appointments. There will always be a need for face to face consultations, but phone appointments are a valid way to ensure more patients get the appointment they need.

sluttygran

The government plan to get rid of the NHS, and to have us all paying for private care, has clearly worked very well.

That’s not going to happen.

maddyone

Telephone appointments are an efficient use of time, more people are treated through telephone appointments.
Or we could all go face to face and find it even harder to get an appointment.

For some conditions and requirements - and for some people - telephone appointments are an excellent utilisation of time.

But obviously there are times when a doctor physically needs to look at a patient who might be complaining of a symptom that appears superficially minor, but could indicate something far more serious.

For those who are elderly and maybe not so medically 'well-educated' or have complex medical conditions, I think a F2F appointment is essential.

My local surgery is struggling financially, so badly in fact that they've petitioned Parliament and are asking that we, patients, write to our MP, individually.

Four doctors have resigned, and the surgery cannot afford to replace them.

The number of people wanting to see a GP is rising - all the time - and the number of qualified GPs is dropping.

It isn't just a matter of funding - the pool of clinicians is being drained. There aren't enough GPs and, according to one of them at my surgery, they are overwhelmed with paperwork.

And, as long as this continues, so will the increase in those attending A&E.

Perhaps, instead of going for the low-hanging-fruit - the disabled and sick - to rally the troops, Sunak should have instead focused on this issue which affects millions of people, and causes chaos up and down the country's hospitals' A&E and other departments.

"The NHS is safe with us". Well, it isn't. And quite likely to become even less safe. We will end up with it being a 'safety net' only with ever-expanding holes in the safety net.

We are very lucky with our health centre. If we need an appointment we ring at by 7 am and send an engage consult. You are generally telephoned back within three hours. If they think you should be seen by a GP, it will be the same day. Otherwise you may see a nurse or other health care person. I was directed to the Pharmacist when I had a sore tongue and there were no appointments left for that day. When I have telephoned (to make an appointment for my long term conditions check) someone has answered pretty soon. So, we are very lucky.

Ours is still a dispensing practice.

Maybee perhaps you could make a general enquiry next time you go to the practice, just to establish who exactly is in charge/working in the pharmacy.
I would think it unusual these days for prescriptions to be checked by the doctors. It is normally the job of the pharmacist.
Our prescriptions are sent to the pharmacy of our choice and so we have them sent to the pharmacy near our home, since that is nearer to us than the GP pharmacy, and repeat prescriptions are just automatically sent through to there.

I phoned my surgery at 8.30 this morning and was given an appointment for 9.40 with my preferred Dr. Never had any problems getting an appointment so I’m very thankful.

I was the dispenser at my practice and everything had to be checked by a doctor. If the practice now has a pharmacist working there ( which might now be the case) I guess they would countersign it. This prescription wasn’t signed by anybody. Either way it has to be checked by two people because mistakes do happen. I had to be particularly vigilant with one of my doctors.

I thought meditation was checked by the pharmacist, not the doctor, at the dispensary. Doctors don’t have time to check every prescription is correct. Are you sure it wasn’t the pharmacist Maybee? Certainly counter staff should not be dispensing medications without the pharmacist signing them off.

My partner put in a repeat prescription 10 days ago at our surgery. Went to pick it up yesterday and it wasn’t ready so was told to return today. When he arrived it still wasn’t ready but someone took it off a shelf in the dispensary, put a label on it and gave it to him without having it counter checked by a doctor. It was for a blood thinner. I can’t believe how standards have dropped. Does medication not need to be checked now?

They’re changing to this new system without actual humans. The automated process allows a robot to assess you and order drugs, delivered by drone. If you need an operation you get sent a scalpel and a video showing you how to remove your appendix, kidney or stuck-fast baby.
The old GPs will all retire to the Bahamas.

Telephone appointments are an efficient use of time, more people are treated through telephone appointments.
Or we could all go face to face and find it even harder to get an appointment.

Shelflife

I was in my GPs surgery - not for an appointment. It was 10 am and there was as just one person waiting to be seen. What are the GPs doing with their time !?

Taking telephone appointments

travelsofar
111 will obtain an urgent GP appointment for you if needed. They did this for me when I had a kidney infection. GP treated me immediately.

I can always get an urgent same day GP appointment if needed, but either myself or my husband needs to go to the surgery first thing in the morning. If we ring, by the time we get through, there are none left. I can also book a telephone appointment quite easily online but it will be a couple of weeks away, so not suitable for urgent. 111 or the walk in centre are good though if needed. Older people do need to consider how near they are to facilities. It seems many Gransnetters live in villages. This may not be the best option as we age. It is important to be near the GP and the walk in centre, and probably not too far from a hospital. I’m currently receiving treatment and I have to travel nearly 40 miles to the hospital which is treating me. I’m happy to travel.

travelsafar

I have been sneaky and booked an appointment with the nurse for my 6mth bp check. She always asks how I am so I will tell her about the pain I have and skin issues in the hopes she can help. No luck with actual gp appointment. If nurse can't help then I will ring 111.

Good idea. Worth a try.

Serendipity22

What gets me is - why on earth has it all changed to nee on impossible to get an appointment???? Why ?

Population increasing, and hours GPs are working, decreasing?
Dont know for sure.
Maybe been discussed on another thread on here?

Like Jaxjacky our Surgery is much improved but at the expense of removing those living outside the catchment area. A friend who has been with them for over 50 years has been asked to find an alternative practice as she lives in the next village.

I filled in an econsult on Monday, GP rang me the next day, our surgery has improved considerably in the last 6 months, but they stopped taking new patients at the same time. We’ve lots of new houses being built with no extra surgery provision.