Is the government trying to break the GP service?

A major problem for GPs is the huge amount of bureaucracy that exists now with so much paperwork required by governments for monitoring and auditing. So even when the surgery is closed there are hours of paperwork to do.

A huge problem with private medicine is that they are happy to cherry pick the more profitable procedures for patients considered low risk but not to invest in the expensive things like intensive care or special care baby units. So if a patient develops complications the private hospital calls an ambulance and sends them to the NHS for the expensive care. I know someone who had heavy bleeding after surgery and was shipped by BUPA to the NHS. Yet this has a knock on effect that the NHS - so the bed that was meant to be available - for example for cancer surgery - is taken up by the private patient whose procedure may have had low priority.

My doctors practice us open for appointments Mon,Tue,Thurs,Friday, 9 til 11 and 3 til 6, there is an emergency surgery Saturday, one doctor 1 hour. I booked an appointment to see one of the 6 doctors a month ago. I don't know how much annual leave they get, but the doctor I would like to see seems to be on holiday permanently he retires soon, but is not yet approaching 60. I think if people visit Emercency when it isn't one, should be charged. Also the drunks that come in and are abusive to the staff and Paramedics are a disgrace and should have to pay. The National Health was not designed for all the people that use it and the life changing treatments we have now are mind boggling exensuve. Anyone that hadn't contributed to the Natiinal health Service, should sign before treatment and pay.

Inside Out on BBC1 at 7.30 is about the NHS in your area.

103 medical staff are assaulted everyday. Please sign this petition to make it a specific offence like assault of police officers. ( this is an offence in Scotland, but not England and Wales)
www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/stop-violence-on-nhs-staff-nick-ferraris-petition/

I'd say it is a vocation - years of basic training followed my many more years of working very long hours at the same time as doing essential study and exams.
My cousin is a surgical registrar. She has been on maternity leave. She's going back "part time" - 3 days a week which works out as 40 hours. During this time she will be moved between hospitals in her region, without choice. Only about another 6 -8 years before she can clock up enough experience to apply for consultant posts in locations of her choice.
GPs have to, effectively, run their own business (recruit and manage staff, comply with workplace legislation etc etc) while being nice to all members of the public, however trivial their problems, unnecessary their visits or however determined they are to damage their own health.

And GPs have much bigger caseloads these days than they did 50 years ago.

Inside Out was very depressing, all those people who have been denied drugs, a GP who said he'd put a request in for someone as if they decided to sack him, it wouldn't happen until after he retired.

Everyone said it is now a postcode lottery, whether you get treatment you need. Department of Health would not be interviewed.

I think that's cobblers. When I was at school in the 1960s/1970s, the pupils with the best science A levels went on to do medicine, which is generally what happens now.

What's cobblers, daphne?

Medicine being a vocation.

My fault. I should have addressed the post to ankers.

Thanks for the explanation, daphne. I thought you meant what was on Inside Out.
There was a 33 year old man who had HepC, who had to spend £1300 on the drugs to stop his liver deteriorating further, as they said his liver wasn't bad enough for the NHS to give him the drugs. He said he felt like going out and getting drunk just to make his liver worse.
It's appalling what is happening now.

Our surgery has appointments available from 7.30 for people who want to see a doctor before they go to work. As a pensioner I could go at any hour of the day, but I have several times been offered one of the early ones which suggests that not many people are bothering with them.

A couple of days ago I came across an American cancer patient who is buying his chemo drugs from India because it's the only way he can afford them. Presumably this is what Jeremy Idiot Hunt thinks we should all be doing.

Same here Deedaa! My surgery is open at 7.30 two days a week, until 20.00 on an other two days and Saturday mornings for emergencies and vaccinations. There is also a weekend clinic (8-8 on Saturday and Sunday) provided by a private provider for booked appointments.

The weekend surgery will probably be stopped, because it costs a fortune and is underused. The 7.30 appointments are supposed to be only for working people, but (like you) the receptionist has sometimes found it difficult to fit me in during the day and given me one of these appointments.

The surgery is shut on Wednesday afternoons, because there is only so much it can do. This means that it's not open for 'core hours' and could be fined by the NHS.

durhamjen, I'm sure you will enjoy being right and gloating if my surgery goes wrong. But I would rather give up my bed in the NHS hospital to try to stem the progress of her stage 4 cancer, than take up the bed for my non essential surgery.

But you will never know if my surgery goes wrong, as I won't be here to tell anyone. Enjoy.

Our GP's surgery does not have early appointments and the latest appointment is 5.30pm which means anyone who works would almost definitely have to take time off to visit the surgery. Our local hospital needs a kick up the pants too. My 78 year old dad had a fairly routine (nhs) appointment with a consultant on a Sunday afternoon (in his private clinic, in the nhs hospital), even the consultant said he was puzzled as to why he should not have had a "normal" appointment. A young working person would have really appreciated that appointment as would probably lose a days pay otherwise. But hey, someone would have had to "think" about that.

Wouldn't anyone Wobblybits? Why should any routine surgery get priority over life/death surgery?

Just checked. The Bank of England offers private health care as a perk for all its employees.

With the idea that some people are more important than others, it's no wonder that the class system rules in the UK and that industrial relations are generally poor.

It's abhorrent that some companies only make perks available to top management, while lesser mortals even get sacked for sickness absence.

Nobody is indispensable in the workforce, although some people seem to think they are.

Wobblybits The NHS's funding of an op in a private hospital is not the same as private healthcare. The NHS has been using private hospitals to reduce lists for decades.

On appointment availability I agree with you gillybob although I don't agree that you necessarily need to be a "young" working person!
Our surgery doesn't start until 8.30 am although to be fair they do take bookings for that day from 8 am. The trouble is, when you're working that is the time you're busy with meetings or setting up the day's programme. Then if the latest appointment is at 5.30 pm you can't get home in time for that either (50 minutes across London). This week I am off work and packing in various appointments - optician, dentist etc. but illnesses don't come along at convenient times so the GP surgery doesn't fit into that category. You're right, it does need someone to think all this through.

Oops Lillie I should have said "younger" working person (like me) or even just working person like my DH

I think we all would wobblybits if we thought it would do any good. But don't anybody dismiss "non-urgent" surgery just because it is not an emergency. It can be life altering, can prevent emergency surgery and if you are having a lifesaving procedure better to have an ICU or "Recovery" bed available and a surgical team who have not been on their feet for 36 hours.
We would all give up our place in the queue if we could influence the outcome for others, but it is rarely in our gift to do so.

Medicine is a vocation. No- one would choose to work so hard otherwise. While I agree doctors earn a reasonably good income it is not excessive for the studying, working and stress involved.

'Medicine is a vocation.'
I had thought of that too, but you should know,
mumofmadboys.
I remember David Cameron saying 'we're going to train 4000 more doctors' or something like that. And thinking, oh yes? and where are you going to find 4000 people willing and able to be trained, studying for at least 5 years, ++?

And they would need more to replace the projected retirements. But applications for GP training are down not up. It just feels like Jeremy Hunt wants to reduce the NHS in England to a shambles so that he gets his wish of a major boost to private health businesses.
He's just sold a business for a fortune. Don't suppose he'd like to retire and enjoy his dosh would he?