A snapshot look at NHS services in your area

I know I'm biased but in any organisation first point of contact is vitally important and receptionists are just that. And the more stress and bother a receptionist can divert away from a doctor the more time they can spend doing what they actually want to do, which is to see and cure patients. The really good, hands on doctors are usually the ones most bothered by the amount of paperwork they're bogged down with . A smiling face and someone asking about their poorly dog etc can actually make a difference to someones day [or even pointing out to the doctor that the patient has a poorly dog and is upset about it].

Spot on Tegan

We live in a Leicestershire town, having moved here from a large city. The GP practice here is excellent, even though people who have lived here all their lives may disagree!
We have an excellent local hospital in the next town, approximately 20 mins drive, and I have visited for various appointments on several occasions.
If an X-Ray is required by our GP we are given a form, present ourselves to our local hospital, wait perhaps 10 mins. max, and are back in the car and on our way home.
In November of last year I had a knee replacement at this hospital; I originally saw the consultant at a large city hospital 20 miles away but he also saw patients once a week at my local hospital. This is where he did my TKR. The care and after care were exemplary; I really couldn't fault it, and the food was really good too!
I know that there are a lot of negatives about the NHS and I really would not want to be a patient in some of the hospitals, but take a little comfort from the fact that there is excellent health care still to be had.

I got an letter in the post this morning inviting me to a "Creating Our Culture workshop", at which patients get to voice their opinions of the NHS.

Was on the island of Mull recently and had to seek urgent advice: the local GP practice was closed for a holiday but NHS 24 would not speak to me because they said go to the GP during daytime . We took ourselves off to the only hospital's A @ E and walked into silence. A nurse arrived , took my details and said she would get the doctor to come over from his house . He did so gave lots of advice and we were on our way . I could not believe it .

How is your GP surgery now crun? Was it the one that was in the media recently that had to close for lack of GPs?
Dont answer if you dont want to.

Your workshop is likely to get heated I would have thought. Are you going to it?

I've only been once in the last 3 months Soon, the only difference is that it's now administered directly by the NHS using locums, so there isn't much to notice really. The one I saw last month referred me for a colonoscopy without examining me, which is fine by me but I wonder what the bean counters would say if they knew.

I don't think I'll go to the workshop, I put a complaint in last June, so I'll wait and see what their reply is before I say any more.

I have posted on here before about our GP surgery and the sorry state it has come to.
I am just back from having blood taken for the Million women Study.They had approached my GP who agreed to do it. The receptionist was obstructive when I rang for an appt and asked for the whole letter to be read out. Then asked for a phone no to ask them to fax a copy to them.
The health professional who took the blood couldn't have been more dismissive if she had tried and referred to it as "being for some charity" !!
Not a happy bunny.

We have a superb local surgery. We book appointments online and can always be seen on the day even if it's not by our own doctor. They have excellent nurses too.
Our local hospital has some very good consultants, and we've seen quite a few, but the care on the wards leaves a lot to be desired. They are understaffed and most of the nurses don't seem interested. We've no complaints about A n E but it can be very slow unless you go in by ambulance.
The 'fracture' clinic is a joke where you are seen by whoever picks up your file so despite having a knee problem I was often seen by the shoulder specialist.
My husband is receiving care for a new problem from a hospital a bit further away but they seem to take more of a holistic attitude to his health which is what he needs.

21% of GP trainees intend to go and work abroad as soon as trained- and 50% from the start intend to work part time- my maths are not very good- but that leaves with NHS without much for the future!

I presume you mean that they are in their final year of training or whatever, and have started to specialise in GP training.

I wonder if those that want to work part time, will get hired on that basis. I suppose if surgeries are desparate, they would accept that.

As regards those who plan to go abroad, I dont suppose that can be stopped.

It works in reverse too. Many medical staff are trained abroad, and choose to work for the NHS.

I do think that if a country spends billions training doctors- they should have to serve at least some years in that country.

And the next bit is one that really I struggle with- as I am all in favour of equality- but most of the doctors going into General Practice who intend to work part-time, are women. And a significant women who study medicine or ophtalmology- have no intention of ever working in the field ever- but do so to secure a better marriage, in societies were arranged marriages are still the norm. The NHS 'thought' it was training sufficient numbers according to the books- but the reality means that we are facing a massive shortfall.

Especially as the mumber of hours worked by Junior doctors nowadays ia about half of what it was in the 70s and 80s.

You mean that those part time women are being trained by the NHS?

Your first paragraph. Can doctors be made to? By contract? I know of a different situation where the wording of the contract. is "expected to" carry on working for us for an amount of time after..[being deliberately vague]. But I realised that they couldnt enforce it.
I suppose laws can be made for anything, so there could be a legal contract put in place to ensure doctors stay after training.

Quote: " And a significant women who study medicine or ophtalmology- have no intention of ever working in the field ever- but do so to secure a better marriage, in societies were arranged marriages are still the norm."

Granjura Do you have any evidence or references to back that up?

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/09/06/11000-people-die-in-the-uk-each-year-because-george-osborne-is-obsessed-with-closing-the-defict/

An interesting way of looking at the costs of saving lives, and deciding whether they are worth it.

Quote: " ^And a significant women who study medicine or ophthalmology have no intention of ever working in the field ever- but do so to secure a better marriage, in societies were (where?) arranged marriages are still the norm^"

I am gobsmacked at such a sweeping generalisation. What evidence do you have? What figures?
And what is your problem with GPs of either sex working flexi time to fit around families? Isn't that the sort of equality we have been fighting for, for women?

Bordering North Staffs where there is now a University Hospital and Cheshire East with the Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. We can use either.
Our surgery is in a health centre used by two different sugeries. There have been several changes of staff lately with some locums due to retirement. Two GPs are fairly useless. The one I see is very caring and thorough. Someone says one of the new GPs seems good.

Our local Mid Cheshire hospital has improved markedly over the last few years and now has a 4* rating. I have had various minor surgery and investigations there over the last few years. I attend the eye clinic which is currently very over subscribed with long waiting times.
My last encounter at that hospital was a gastroscopy. (Not at the eye clinic!)
The staff were helpful and friendly. During this uncomfortable proceedure a nurse was holding me and reasuring me all the way though which I very much appreciated. A good caring attitude.
Good management seems to have turned this place around in recent years.

Where I live is in general a reasonably prosperous town with a lot of professionals. The more informed articulate patients probably have higher expectations and take much better charge of their own health without going to the Drs so often and are more demanding of good service.
I had a friend who lived in our town and was a practice nurse in an industrial town a few miles away. This was an area where that has been a chronic history of poor health over several generations due to serious air polution. (The Potteries. Coal Mining, steel making and dirty smoking bottle kilns.) A lot of that industry went in the 1980s and the town exprienced very high unemployment rates. I am sure that the economic downturn left a large number of people jobless much poorer and very demoralised.
My friend always said that the patients at her surgery seemed to depend more on going to the surgery for every little ailment, demanded of antibiotics to cure anything, and seemed in general to take a lot less responsibility for their own health.
The demographics of any area, probably makes a huge difference to the state of local services and the pressures faced.

I've been registered with our local practice for 45 years and have seen the young GP's age with me. We had children at the same time, our children went to local schools and often played football/rounders/netball/athletics against each other. Those once young GP's are now either retired or retiring. it's a teaching practice in a mixed area where schools are good so thus far, there has been no problem recruiting or retaining staff. There is a tradition of young female GP's working part time to accommodate child care and the older male or female GP's working part time to avoid burn out/exhaustion.

I've had brilliant treatment over the years and as I have chronic health problems, I'm very grateful for that. You can see a doctor on the day but may have to wait to see the doctor of your choice. The practice nurses are also excellent professionals and like the GP's approachable, warm and supportive.

I want to support the questions raised to Granjura by janeainsworth and Alea - where is your evidence for the allegation that women who study medicine or opthalmology have no intention of working in those fields but do so to secure a better marriage. Stunning comment imo.
The other issue Granjura raises is the number of female GP's who choose to work part time. What ever is the problem with that? A number of the female GP's at my practice work part time as they have young children. It doesn't diminish their ability to contribute effectively to the practice in the broadest sense. How on earth you reconcile your statement that you're all in favour of equality with these statements is a mystery to me.

Further to my questions, to which I would appreciate chapter and verse, I almost wonder what century and which hemisphere granjura is talking about?
One of the troubles is that with the increase in specialist departments and increasing complexity of treatment, General Practice does not offer the same challenge and opportunity to pursue courses of treatment that it did a generation ago. Increasingly, doctors have to refer patients to hospital so it is hardly surprising that young doctors are more attracted to hospital work at the "sharp end " of medicine, despite the punishing hours.
My sister in law recently retired as a GP(and was a single mother, so yes, theoretically working part time, that is 4 x 10 hour days, night calls with TTDoc and also Saturday mornings) and found it very hard indeed to appoint new staff to her practice.

I'v been pondering on this on and off ever since granjura posted this morning.

So are you really saying, granjura, that a significant number of women go through all those years of training just so they can claim 'doctor' status and thus get a better marriage deal? And never actually work?

Read some rum things on GN since I joined, but this one from GrannyJura takes the biscuit.

Further to my post instead of hemisphere, read galaxy
I do hopegranjura favours us with a reply, or will have to draw our own conclusions?

Going back to the op- I was have posted elsewhere that I just had brilliant service from 111 and can't rate them highly enough.