Creeping Privatisation of our NHS?

Maddyone
Thank you for posting the link. Always happy to learn.

Still very frustrated that we cannot get appointments with our local GPS though. Still getting the answer, ring back in two weeks and see if there are any appointments then.

Article in The Times today explaining why GP pay is not working for the patients.
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/generous-gp-pay-isnt-working-for-patients-lg2np2bps

Thank you for posting the link Silverbridge, I do really hope some posters who don’t understand the situation (and it is very complicated) will read it and it will help them understand a little at least. My daughter was a Practice Partner (before she fled to New Zealand) and she had additional responsibilities, whilst my son in law chose to be a salaried GP, but worked many more hours as an Out of Hours GP, including a huge amount of time in the Covid Hub, from where he caught Covid.

Thanks, maddyone. I think it's all too easy to lose sight of how much "invisible" work GPs and their staff do and how his new way of managing patients helps them to prioritise cases.

I think this must be the website you wanted to link to:

www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/gp-funding-and-contracts-explained

I was fascinated reading about the global sum allocation (Carr Hill formula). NHS England have PDF documents that can be downloaded showing just how complex this calculation is and the many factors that have to be taken into account.

Cambia, GPs are not, and have never been paid per consultation. They are paid on average £155 per patient per year. Regardless of how many times a patient consults with the GP or even if the patient never consults the GP in that year, the Practice will receive £155 for the treatment of that patient. A patient who never consults the GP in a particular year is likely to still require reviews for a variety of conditions such as asthma or diabetes, and a flu vaccine, and possibly other vaccines for holidays, (probably not since Covid) and also all prescriptions need to be reviewed by the doctor regularly and of course repeat prescriptions are needed. £155 is not a lot for the service given in my humble opinion. Life would be very different without our NHS.

Anyway GP Practice payment is very complicated. I’m rubbish at loading links, but

The Kings Fund, GP funding and contracts explained

is a website that explains exactly how GPs are funded, and what they’re contracted to do by the NHS. It’s interesting reading, and shows that GP funding and contracts are not a simple matter, as many posters seem to think.

Thank you for the video Silverbridge, it’s extremely informative. I really hope those who are complaining about their GPs watch it, but actually I doubt they will, because they don’t really want to understand what happens in General Practice.

A day in the life of a GP. A film uploaded 5 August 2021.

Dr Abbie Brooks, a GP Partner at Priory Medical Group in York, shares a day in her life to highlight the work that goes on behind the scenes at practices as staff strive to offer the best possible care to patients.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaAX0S3MbOc

Maddyone
I think you misinterpreted me! I didn’t mean they were paid for flu jabs. I did mean that seeing more patients online rather than face to face, means more patients can be seen and as far as I know they are paid per patient seen. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Our surgery the other day when I actually managed to get an appointment after six months of phone calls had only three patients waiting.
We cannot even make appointments at the moment as we are told all our doctors have no appointments free, ring back in two weeks and ask again.
I cannot understand why they are not seeing patients as they used to. The government advised them in May that they should go back to seeing patients face to face but it is just not happening where I live. I would love an explaination for this if you know the reason for this as I don’t like being cynical!

Thanks ladies. Sometimes I get fed up with having to untangle the facts from the fiction with regard to GPs, but I do keep trying. I totally understand that the service has been stretched during Covid, for all the same reasons everywhere has been stretched, staff having to isolate, and staff getting ill with Covid themselves, and it’s not as easy to recruit a few more GPs as perhaps some other jobs, but I do feel obligated to explain the truth about some of the myths being spread. Or complaints that GPs work part time (well obviously if they’re parents of young children.) It’s good to hear so many people are getting their flu jabs at the surgery, because as I said before, the small payment does not go into individual GPs pockets, but instead into the pot which pays for everything that is needed to run the surgeries.

I had to go to my surgery yesterday and I asked the practice Nurse about the letter from Lloyds that I had also received, she said to ignore it , that our surgery was more than capable of providing Flu jabs and , if necessary a booster Covid jab at the same time.

bobbydog24. Yes that what a text from my GP said I was surprised about the booster but as I said it gave me the choice both to gether or seperate.

Maddyone our GPS and Practice Nurses all the the vaccinations on specific Saturdays throughout October. So some surgeries yes the Doctors also take part. Xx

Thanks Jaxjacky the advice was given to me by a GP, also a member of my family, so good advice I think.

Annie could you recommend the surgeries to me where all the GPs earn £100,000 a year please. My daughter and her husband would absolutely love a job in one of those surgeries.

The simple truth is that very, very few GPs earn that kind of money. It’s ignorance of the facts that makes people post untruths. It’s fed by the right wing, tabloid papers, principally the Daily Mail, who are always having a go at the GPs and unfortunately there are plenty of people who believe it, simply because they don’t actually know any better. Of course the Daily Mail can always find the one GP who actually manages to earn that kind of money, but probably because he or she works out of hours as well. My son in law worked out of hours alongside his GP role. It was evening work after his shift at the surgery till about midnight usually, or weekend work. He still didn’t earn that kind of money. Incidentally the GPs you speak to when they phone you back after calling 111 are the very same GPs who are working during the day in your surgeries.

With regard to part time GPs, well my daughter was one of them, until she left to go to work in New Zealand, where apparently GPs are treated with rather more respect than here in the UK. Anyway she has seven year old twins and a three year old. Are you suggesting that she should have worked full time rather than the three days she did work Annie? I thought that the majority of Gransnetters agree with women having more rights, such as the right to choose to work part time when they have young children, but maybe I’m wrong. Or is just GPs that shouldn’t have that right Annie?

Many of our GPs are women and many of them have young children. That’s often why they work part time. Sometimes GPs choose to work part time in the surgery because they work as out of hours GPs too. I think we all want a GP to be available when we need one during the night or at weekends don’t we?

I agree on your timing maddyone I haven’t booked, I’ll probably wait until OH gets his, he’s 7 years younger, then we’ll book both.

Sometimes I wonder what cloud cuckoo land some people are on. GPS have no room to talk about the NHS being chipped away. I recall in 1997 Tony Blair came to power and soon after that GPs we’re given an enormous salary rise and full time GPs received £100k a year. That is fine with me but they are private businesses selling their services to the NHS. I recall many GPs decided to go part time after the pay raise and who could blame them acting in their own interest. In my London practice very few of the doctors are full time and having your own doctor to see is rare. Consequently at my age and given my health condition my visits are shortened as the Doctor has to read the files.

My husband had a heart bypass in the largest private hospital in London and there were NHS patients everywhere being treated there and this was in 1989. So private institutions have been used by the NHS for far longer than the OP would say. I had to have a hernia scanned in the last couple of years and this was done by a private company with a referral from my GP. This is probably an economic use of funds as the machinery is so expensive and I was scanned almost immediately.

I understand that in Eire people pay a small fee when they go to see their doctor. We may have to go to such a scheme here given the number of people who missed appointments in the time before Covid. I like going to my pharmacy for my flu jab because pharmacies provide a very useful, community service.

The NHS needs a thorough overhaul.after so many years. So OP I do not agree with you. The use of some private services is to the advantage of the patient.

Booked both myself and my husband to have our Flu vaccinations 2 minutes apart on 23rd September at our GP's surgery. I wouldn't go anywhere else! Our NHS needs our support!

I have to be fair though, they have seen my daughter who has much higher medical needs for quite a few things.

I just understand the frustration

PippaZ, Specsavers do wax removal

I wonder whether this privatisation has regional differences. I have posted about my son, a child, being refused to be seen as my medical centre no longer 'do eyes'. His whole eye was swollen (in hindsight I think he had covid though an LFT was negative) they gave me the number of a private practice and I rang them and asked if they knew of anyone NHS I could ring. I'd already seen the pharmacist who said he needed to see the GP. In the end a bemused ophthalmologist prescribed over the phone!

Covid I mean.

Rosycheeks I wasn’t aware the offer of a booster has been decided by the government yet.

I wonder who has decided that GPs will not do this. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

When the chemists do the vaccinations I imagine they get the same payment the GP would have done. If someone else is to do this job surely they ought to be paid from the NHS budget?

Who on earth does private wax removal? The next thing we will hear about is perforated ear drums because people can't afford to pay and are trying to do it themselves.

As I understand it, greater hearing loss speeds dementia. The world is going completely mad.

Cambia

To be honest after trying all year to see a doctor face to face (finally succeeded this week after refusing to leave the surgery until I got one), I would head straight to the pharmacy now. My surgery was excellent until the pandemic but it is now almost impossible to see a doctor. I would always have supported gp’s over pharmacies but sadly I think gp’s now are also financially influenced. Very sad.

Cambria do you honestly believe that the small amount GP Practices receive for doing flu vaccines is paid to the GPs. Oh dear, the ignorance over this is astounding. The money that the GP Surgery receives goes into the pot out of which the upkeep of the surgery comes (electricity, cleaning, repairs and maintenance and refurbishment) and the pot pays nurses, health care assistants, the Practice manager and any other employees their salaries. It buys in extra nurses to do health care checks etc. When all of that is paid for, the GPs get whatever is left divided among them, and that is their salary. I thought everyone knew this but clearly not.

My friend had to have her ears syringed privately and it cost her £60, also I used to get 2 inhalers when I ordered my prescription, but now I only get one. I enquired why this is and they said it was cutbacks adding that if I needed another I sooner than the date on my notes for renewing I would have to pay privately.

Privatisation has been creeping in for years. Had an endoscopy procedure about 4 years ago. All the staff had a specific uniform with company logo. Asked why, told lots of procedures are undertaken by external companies as NHS swamped. Local hospital actually has an office on site for a specific private health provider company. Nothing new.

If GPs really want us to keep using their services, why do they keep cutting them back? Where I live, no GPs now do podiatry sessions or ear wax removal. I paid £68 to get my ears sorted which I can afford but I'm guessing many can't and to be old and near-invisible is bad enough but to be effectively (yet curably) deaf must be so very isolating.