New system at GP surgery.

Urmstongran

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for so many supportive posts. I feared I was derailing the thread to be honest but sharing my heartache felt good. I needed to vent. I’ve kept it trapped inside of me for so very long.

Vent as often as you need Urms, you and himself are going through a rollercoaster of emotions. That delay will obviously play on your mind now.

See my post above yours BigMamma.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for so many supportive posts. I feared I was derailing the thread to be honest but sharing my heartache felt good. I needed to vent. I’ve kept it trapped inside of me for so very long.

I’ve given up GPs and rely on Google. I know people say don’t Google your symptoms because you’ll be frightened to death by the results but do it sensibly. Only read known and trusted sites. Most NHS advice is out of date and simplistic. Don’t bother with US sites.
If you rang a GP with symptoms of appendicitis they’d probably say buy a scalpel and watch a video.

I agree with knspol, Urms. None of this is your fault. You and Himself are in my thoughts, too.

Urmstongran, my heart goes out to you both. What a dreadful series of events with an even worse outcome. You have so much to deal with right now so please try not to spend time blaming yourself. Anybody would have done exactly as you did. We all trust the people in front of us who appear to know what they are doing. How could anybody except another medical person have been in a position to judge what you were told, we would all have done the same as you. Take care.

do we really need GPs anymore

Of course we do. Primary practice is vital. What we actually need is more GPs, not none at all. We have too few GPs and that’s why we have the difficulty in getting to see one. The government’s answer was initially to train nurses up to do some GP work. Then they advocated the training of Advanced Nurse Practitioners, and when none of these coped with the demand, they introduced the scheme of Physician Associates (please never see a Physician Associate! They can’t prescribe or as mentioned above, refer patients for cancer investigation.) The one thing the government have not done is train more doctors despite the growing population. The fault is entirely the fault of government, not the doctors.

Doodledog

Yes, I have seen the results, but without going into personal details I need to speak to the GP, as it is the interaction between different systems that we need to get to the root of, and that is way beyond my understanding.

Yes, I understand.

we might at least get some more doctors trained

I hope so too 🤞🤞🤞

However, I think we should all bear in mind the length of time it takes to train a GP. I know this as my daughter is a GP (working in New Zealand at the moment but wanting to relocate back to England, but unable to at present as her ex husband refuses to allow the children to return to the country of their birth and where they are are citizens, but that’s a other story.)
My daughter did six years at university doing the intercalated degree, other students may do the five year straight medicine degree. Then two years in hospital F1 and F2, doing a variety of rotations to gain varied experience. My daughter then did a year in a psychiatric hospital gaining experience in that area, and only then did she enroll on a GP training course, which took a further three years. So she was training for twelve years before she was a fully qualified GP. The shortest possible time to become a fully qualified GP is ten years.

So there is no quick fix.

This has all happened since Covid started, Before we could get appointments the same day if it was urgent or in a couple of days if not but now it is totally impossible to be seen the same day as we are told, after hanging on the phone for nearly an hour, to ring 111 or go to a walk in centre or A & E.

My question is, why do we need GP's anymore. They do not do anything, I have not seen one since well before Covid started and now it is 2024 and the only people I have seen have been hospital staff when I was admitted for double pneumonia and thanks to ringing 111, they sent me an ambulance within 15 minutes as I was so ill. The GP surgery told me there were no appointments for weeks and to go to a walk in centre or ring 111 or go to A & E.

So again I ask, do we really need GP's anymore.

Impressed with hours this morning, econsult for MrJ at ahou 9:30, phone call ten minutes later, GP physical appointment 4:45 today.
Our surgery have improved considerably in the last year, not sure what they’ve done, but it’s working.

Yes, I have seen the results, but without going into personal details I need to speak to the GP, as it is the interaction between different systems that we need to get to the root of, and that is way beyond my understanding.

I wish they’d organise surgeries in the way their patients think best.

Doodledog

The GP didn’t take blood. He asked that I get bloods done when I was seeing the nurse for my injection. I then needed a telephone appointment to discuss the results.

Ahh, I misunderstood.
Can you not see the test results on the NHS app? Maybe your surgery don’t use it. If my blood test results require action I get a text from the surgery, but I think from reading this thread, that all surgeries are doing things differently, which I understand (so long as the system works) because GP surgeries are independent businesses (I mean businesses in the loosest sense of the word) and therefore they can organise the way the surgery works in the way they think best.

I have just been referred to maxi facial. I was told there would be a quite a wait as they were still dealing with referrals from last October!

I wonder why some gps waiting rooms are empty now?
Mine is, but I can't imagine that patients never overlap.

It's like a ghost town in there.
I have to go elsewhere to have blood tests (of which I need LOTS) but the wait for those is at least a month sometimes.

Then I get told off when I have a hospital appointment as they sometimes haven't had the results yet.

We ring from eight, it works well, sometimes you a 5 in the queue when you get through but my husband and I've never failed to get an appointment that day, usually with my preferred Dr though all the ones I've seen are lovely, we must just be lucky, I don't go often but he does

growstuff

Doodledog: "I don't even see how it saves time, really."

Neither do I! I've pointed this out to my GP practice in a letter I wrote. I timed the conversations I had just to get an appointment I'd been told to make and pointed out that it was a waste of their and my time. Multiply that by thousands of patients and interactions and it seems obvious that many hours are being used inefficiently. The practice manager even agreed with me and looked a bit sheepish when he agreed to see me.

But did anything change growstuff? Words are cheap.
“We’ve taken your comments on board”.
Yeh, right.
Then back to ‘business as usual’.

The gp situation is another way that people are being pushed into being second class citizens. As it is also happening with the job centres etc. If you dont have a phone you are at an immediate disadvantage. Not every one can afford a phone, and some people have difficulty using a phone anyway. so it is the quickest off the mark at 8am get the appointments etc. Why? The covid situation allowed banks and others to try to force everyone to use cards and not cash etc etc. Well it doesnt matter if you are a millionaire, you will get no signal up the top of the dales and cannot use a card at all but have to stick to cash. Well as it is coin of the realm why should people refuse to take cash. Even though I do have a card I refuse to buy from places that wont accept cash and put my money where my mouth is. Standing up for all people to be treated equally is important to me and we need to fight to make sure all are treated equally with doctors appointments part of it. If anyone looks at my record of visiting gp s I absolutely do not go unnecessarily to the doctors. Hate having to go under any circumstances. I moved in covid times and of course the new surgery did not know me. A situation arose on a friday and got worse very quickly. I rang for an appointment and was told nothing until the following week. I persisted and said I needed to see a doctor that day, as things were worsening very quickly and as it was friday it could mean having to go to hospital over the weekend. After much difficulty I did get in to see a doctor. When he saw the situation he said just wait there a minute and came back and said that he had arranged for me to go to hospital immedately. By going that day I was at least able to stay at home and go in each day for 16 days for injections and treatment. If I had not persisted I rather shudder to think what could have happened. I am always polite to people and know that receptionists have a thankless task trying to provide a good service for everyone, but hopefully with this government we might at last get some more doctors trained and the health service supported instead of trying to constantly blame the patients. I do accept that there are some people who are utterly selfish and think they should be treated before others who are in a much worse state. I did hospital car service for 10 years and have seen all sorts of people over the y ears but definitely the great majority do not misuse the service, in fact many older people wait longer than they should, and never want to ask for help. So do not use the Tory disgraceful behaviour , where you try to blame others for your lack of support and training for those working in the nhs, and think you can put different groups of society against each other instead of blaming them for lowering the support for the service and not providing training to such an extent that many people did not chose to become health workers or decided that to be a doctor here was impossible and left.

Doodledog: "I don't even see how it saves time, really."

Neither do I! I've pointed this out to my GP practice in a letter I wrote. I timed the conversations I had just to get an appointment I'd been told to make and pointed out that it was a waste of their and my time. Multiply that by thousands of patients and interactions and it seems obvious that many hours are being used inefficiently. The practice manager even agreed with me and looked a bit sheepish when he agreed to see me.

Our surgery has econsult, but their system can only deal with a certain amount in 24 hours, so we can be asked to try again at 8.30 the following morning. I sent one recently with pictures of blistering on my nose. I got a reply from a physician associate saying that it looked suspicious, so I would be referred to dermatology. A letter arrived telling me that for urgent appointments, the waiting list was 26 weeks, and for non urgent, 94 weeks! I called the hospital to ask if mine was urgent, and she said that it was. When I asked if it would be safe to leave it that long, she said yes, seeing as melanoma wasn’t mentioned. I wonder if the associate would be qualified enough to make that decision just by looking at a picture. I too remember the days when we could just turned up at the surgery without an appointment!

The GP didn’t take blood. He asked that I get bloods done when I was seeing the nurse for my injection. I then needed a telephone appointment to discuss the results.

I can't keep up with all the changes my GP practice constantly notifies me about. Most recent 5 weeks ago are 1. place is closed both for phone calls and physical entry. Apparently, this is to allow staff to catch up with their workload.
2. Phone calls only on a Thursday 1.30 - 2.30 to book appointment that will be in 4 weeks time.
3. Like other practices, reception will need to be told purpose of request for appointment.
4. Once booked, reasons will be considered and you will be assigned to appropriate medical person. This means you may think you are booked in to see a Dr but when you get to your appointment it could be with nurse practitioner, or any of the other nursing staff.
Whole system an absolute disgrace.

growstuff

No, you're not being thick flappergirl. That's why the "queue outside before 8am" system never worked for me - for years, I had just finished getting my children ready for school and bundling myself in the car and on my way to work.

That's why a system which releases appointments throughout the day and evening is needed.

Thanks for the reassurance growstuff. I thought I was the only one!

I’m shocked Doodledog that your GP has to take blood for you. We have nurses and care assistants who take blood. The doctors never do it, they request it and fill the paperwork and you just make the appointment for the blood to be taken. The appointment for the blood test will be within days. If the blood test is regular or routine (I have an annual blood test to check glucose, cholesterol etc) I receive a computer generated text and just make the appointment. It all works well. You really shouldn’t have to wait weeks because your GP is either part time, or works in other areas the rest of the time.