What to GPs actually DO?

Just to report that On Monday I thought I detected signs of a previous problem, and at 0800 on Tuesday morning I rang my GP practice. I got through after only 10 minutes, and the receptionist promised that a doctor would ring me back during the morning. This he did, and I was in his surgery being examined at 1130. He rang the local hospital while I was there, and by 1230 I was in A&E. Full marks to the GP practice.

I’ve just received an email from Boots saying that from £15 upwards anyone can contact an online Doctor who can give advice on 40 conditions and prescriptions given.

www.boots.com/onlinedoctor

Thank you maddyone your concern is much appreciated and yes I am relieved that her situation looks a lot more positive this morning.

I’m glad to hear your friend is responding well to treatment Gwyneth. That is very good news and you must be relieved

nanna8

Of all the professions I think the GPS are the least likely to be ‘lazy’. Especially at the moment. To suggest otherwise is ignorant and offensive.

Absolutely nanna8. GPs are not lazy, they work much longer hours than many other people, but a lot of their work is unseen by the patients. This is a fact, not an opinion. There will always be some who don’t pull their weight in every job or profession in the land, but doctors are in the main, dedicated professionals, and care about their patients. With so much Covid still circulating in the country, more face to face appointments would inevitably lead to more GPs getting Covid, even though they are double vaccinated, because face to face appointments require the doctor to sit in a small room with a possibly infected patient, as well as close bodily contact if an examination is required, and there are still a great many unvaccinated people out there. If the doctor gets Covid, guess what, fewer appointments for the patients while the doctor recovers. It’s not rocket science.

Thank you for the kind comments from posters re my elderly friend in hospital. I rang the hospital this morning and thankfully she is responding to treatment.
grumppa I think that the BMA, patient representatives and the Health Secretary need to meet sooner rather than later to discuss the situation. Yes the BMA need to clarify the pressures their members are under but they (the BMA ) also need to understand the huge difficulties patients are having in accessing medical care. The Health Secretary needs to listen to both sides and start planning for the future as well as deciding what solutions are possible in the short term.

As I have suggested on another thread covering this topic, there appears to be a deafening silence from the GP’s union, the BMA, and their professional body, the RCGP.

Given the very varied experience of patients during the pandemic, from the excellent to the dire, why are the GP’s representatives not out there, explaining the pressures their members are under?

Of all the professions I think the GPS are the least likely to be ‘lazy’. Especially at the moment. To suggest otherwise is ignorant and offensive.

Please remember the receptionists are only carrying out the doctors orders, they do not make the rules, the GPS do. Receptionists are leaving in droves quite often in response to the attitude of patients to them.

I am a medical secretary in a GP practice and have worked in the NHS for around 32 years, not just in a surgery, hospital too and I have never seen it so busy, it’s like fighting a fire. GPS are far from lazy, and their day is frantically busy with phone calls and also face to face.

nanna8

The real problem is a scarcity of GPs it seems. Why, I wonder ,do they make it so very hard to study medicine for young people? Here you have to get an enormously high score to be admitted to medical school to study in the first place. I am not thinking they should let mediocre students in, of course not , but it really is very hard for the young would be doctors. However, if you are an overseas student you can get in quite easily, pay a large sum , train and then return to your country of origin. Something is wrong there. My grandson is a medical student but he had to do a medical science degree before he was accepted to train. All at great cost eventually when he has to start paying back his debt.

Presumably the final exams and other assessments are just as hard for overseas students as they are for domestic ones. How do you know that the overseas students aren't just as eligible to study in the first place? It's not easy to compare different exams systems. Some overseas student have their fees paid by their governments. It's expensive to train doctors and universities can't just add places without affecting quality. Fees from overseas students in the UK subsidise places for domestic students.

My GP told me to make appointment to see him(apparently he’s one that is now doing face to face)appointment given for the next day

The real problem is a scarcity of GPs it seems. Why, I wonder ,do they make it so very hard to study medicine for young people? Here you have to get an enormously high score to be admitted to medical school to study in the first place. I am not thinking they should let mediocre students in, of course not , but it really is very hard for the young would be doctors. However, if you are an overseas student you can get in quite easily, pay a large sum , train and then return to your country of origin. Something is wrong there. My grandson is a medical student but he had to do a medical science degree before he was accepted to train. All at great cost eventually when he has to start paying back his debt.

when i see tv shows about GPs, they all seem to be outside London, and in large purpose built premises; guess it helps with the filming ?
in London most GPs are in converted dwelling houses, often of Victorian vintage and cramped. many since 1948.
most docs are upstairs and people who cannot manage stairs are told off for not declaring this when booking appt, as doc has to come down to nurse's room. patients are often told off.
where i go they do not take bloods, have to go hosp for that.
Gwyneth, i hope your friend is ok; after a week, presume she is elderly, i'd have urged her to ring 111 after hours.

Bijou nice to hear from you! I thought I hadn’t seen your posts on GN lately x

I think it varies from surgery to surgery, just as has always been the case.
There do seem to be a lot of issues that one would assume needs a face to face appointment, though.

It's false economy to palm people off when their problem hasn't been properly addressed.

The practice I attend has three surgeries. Once vaccinations started one surgery was used as a vaccination point and patients were seen at the other two. I've had two appointments in the last year, either the same day or the following day. I was given another appointment for an ECG and blood tests and it turned out that the nurse I saw was a hospital phlebotomist helping out, so that was a bonus because I've got awful veins. Got a prescription query sorted out over the phone in minutes. They really are doing their best.

Alegrias1, thank you. I will post your virtual bouquet on to my fed-up, worn-out daughter!

Is it possible that posters read the original comment then dive through to the last page to make their own comment?

This means that they do not read other people's comments so there is not a balanced discussion, merely venting of spleens.

This is the only explanation that I can come up for some posts.

Again: there are only so many GPs. There are only so many hours in a day. It is impossible to suddenly acquire more doctors to improve the ratio of available GPs. It can't happen. This has been flagged up as a slowly developing situation but has been ignored.

It is not the fault of a GP (or practice) that they cannot supply the demand. It is the fault of successive Governments coupled with unrealistic expectations of some patients.

One minute example is that of a patient at home who asked for a home visit. This person was ambulatory but wanted the doctor to visit them as otherwise, she would have had to call (and obviously pay for) a taxi to take her to the surgery. A home visit by the doctor would entail him being away from other patients in the surgery for forty minutes. Which was the better option?

In an ideal world, this conundrum would not need to happen but we do not live in that world as in days gone by. There is a lack of money and obligation from Government. We are sleep-walking into a private medicine system.....

Gwyneth I’m very sorry to hear about your friend, I hope she/he makes a good recovery.

But what is the ‘something’ that needs to be done? There are too few GPs. We can’t magic more GPs out of the air. It took my daughter twelve years to become a fully trained GP.

1) Six full years reading Medicine at UCL. She graduated firstly with a B of Sc qualification, gained after working in university 9 - 5 every day ( unlike courses such as Geography with only two lectures a week) and some clinical experience in a variety of departments, then followed by further three years of clinical practice, working in different departments and hospitals finishing with gaining her Degree in Medicine (equal to a Masters degree.)

2) Two full years working at a hospital in Dorset, as an F1 and F2 (Foundation One and Foundation Two)

3) One full year working at a hospital in Psychiatry.

4) Three full years working in General Practice in a number of different Surgeries and studying for her final exams at the same time.

Chewbacca

^Be thankful you aren't in Afghanistan at the moment^

Hang on a minute Mirren, that's unfair. No one, that I can see, has in any way compared their difficulties in accessing healthcare in the UK, to those poor souls in Afghanistan right now. But negating the concerns of people, right across the country, who have been trying for several weeks/months to get medical advice from their GP Practice, isn't comparable to a country on the verge of civil war. Patients do have a right to expect to see a healthcare professional if they have concerns and simply telling them why don't you think of the people in Afghanistan is, quite frankly, offensive; especially coming from a GP. As for seeing umpteen patients with umpteen problems all day it's actually your job isn't it? Like, what you're paid for?

Excellent post well said

The elderly friend, who I mentioned earlier on this thread has now been rushed into hospital tonight and is very poorly. She had been trying for two weeks to get to speak to a GP but each time was told to ring back the next day because there were no appointments left. How long can this go on for before something is done?

My daughter and her husband both caught Covid from their patients. Many GPs are working in the hospitals, in the Covid hubs, are working in the vaccination centres in case of any adverse reactions that require immediate treatment from a doctor, or are isolating or have caught Covid themselves.

There’s one poster on here who complained about being unable to see their GP but then went on to treat their own condition and it healed. So why was a GP required?

Surgeries will never get back to normal. Why? Too few GPs, qualified doctors don’t want to be GPs. I wonder why? Perhaps they read one of the many threads on Gransnet about how dreadful GPs are in this country. They certainly are aware of what the Great British public think about them. That’s one of the reasons my daughter and her husband, both GPs, have gone to work in New Zealand. They’re fed up of the abuse and lack of respect many patients display towards them.

I was feeling unwell and dizzy and needed to see my GP. I am 98 and housebound. They said I would receive a home visit. It turned out to be a young paramedic.
A GP does not leave the surgery and only does phone consultations.
My home help cut her finger badly and instead of it being dressed by the Practice nurse was told to go to And E. Twenty six miles away. She waited four hours with her finger bleeding copiously. It was seen to and told to return in ten days time to have the dressing removed. Fortunately managed to do that herself.

I have been to the surgery to see the nurse and have blood tests done, I have had regular fortnightly appointments with a podiatrist who has clinics at the health centre where my GP is situated, but have not managed to get an appointment with the GP for ailments that have been ongoing since before the pandemic. (not really tried, as I was managing) But the other week I actually managed to get through on the 8am phone line, I had started to have vertigo, I told the receptionist (as you have to these days) the problem and that it had been a problem for almost 10 days, on and off, she took my details and said I would get a phone call from the GP that morning, true to her word I did, and he asked me a few questions, then asked if I could go for a face to face appointment the next afternoon. I went and got a bit of a shock as he was testing me for a possible stroke.....I did not know that vertigo was a possible symptom of stroke.....he was happy that I was ok, but told me if the vertigo came back, out of hours, or worse than it had been,

to phone 999 straight away !
He also asked me to book an ECG with the nurse, that's happening the end of next week (earliest they could give me).
At least the doors to the health centre are now open, during pandemic locked and only opened after you had spoken to a member of staff.