Let Your Voice Be Heard!

I hope I go before my body lets me down.

Actually we don’t have to get used to the fact ‘female GPs’ work part time as you state. Sadly, it’s commonplace and patient care is generally the worse for it. I don’t want to say any more as we obviously have vastly different opinions and experiences. However, as to your final comment re too many moaners and complaints regarding GPs this is probably because posters’ experiences reflect this fact as mine certainly do.

How rude to ask if the tax payers are getting good value! Why does anyone assume they have the right to question if they’re getting good value from our hard working doctors? I hope no one who is complaining was out clapping for NHS workers during the Covid19 crisis. And before anyone says GPs didn’t treat Covid patients, yes they did. Who do you think gave the palliative care to patients in care homes?

Well I’m afraid people will just have to get used to the fact that many GPs, particularly female GPs, will choose to work part time whilst their children are young. All other women who have worked at least two years in a job have the right to ask their employers to consider allowing them to work part time after the birth of a child. Why should GPs not have the same rights that every other employee has? Complaining about continuity of care is a ridiculous argument. Do you think GPs should be on duty 24 hours a day, and seven days a week? Of course not, that would be ridiculous. Although I’ve seen comments on other threads that seem to suggest that people think GPs should be on duty all the time, just like the good old days eh?
People make far, far more visits to GPs and A+E Depts now than ever before. With hugely increased demand, no one can expect to see the same doctor every time.

Re tax payers paying for doctors to acquire their qualifications, well tax payers pay for everyone else to get themselves degrees, despite the high fees. If you’re going to argue about that, complain about the cost of everyone’s education, especially those who go on to become successful outside of public service, and pocket all their high earnings without putting anything back into society. In addition, as my daughter trained in London, the total cost to ourselves, her parents, with fees (much lower than now) accommodation, tube travel, living expenses, books and all associated costs, we estimated that it cost us around £10,000 a year to put our daughter through university for the six years it took for her to graduate, and she then went on to train for an additional six years, but was engaged as a junior doctor then and earned a salary.

There is far too much moaning and complaining about GPs on Gransnet, mostly from people who have no idea of what is involved in the job or what GPs do.

It’s time to give it a rest.

Your royal examples are not necessarily down to good health care though . Good nutrition and not having money worries may also have helped . Also good genes ! My mother was 99 when she died and certainly lived through an era of childhood mortality / poor nutrition etc so maybe she was lucky . But she had nothing but good care from the NHS . As have I !

Last December I was diagnosed with knackered kidneys, both of them. Since then I have had nothing but great service from the NHS, that's everyone's from consultant down to nurses. Especially my renal nurse,and especially through covid-19.

I'm no youngster, I'm 68.

Actually Maddyone most women do not have the choice of working part-time because they would not earn enough. They have to work full time. Yes I did work with two children with only 23 months between them.
My point is that because so many GPs are part time they are unable to provide the continuity of care that most patients require. This is the view of many of the people I know not just me.
Also the tax payer contributes a great deal financially towards training a doctor. If so many doctors only work part time is this value for money for the tax payer.

I agree very strongly with the condemnation of the creeping privatisation of the NHS. It worries me deeply that the private sector is getting its hands on parts of our health care service, which will be the thin edge of the wedge leading to charging for care. My daughter lives in the USA and their insurance-based system is incredibly expensive, leaving many people bankrupt after a serious illness. It would be a disaster if the UK went down that road.

I owe my life to the NHS, on more than one occasion, and have no complaints about my treatment. However, I do wonder whether the criteria for treatment has begun to exclude patients on grounds of age. In the case of my M-i-L and F-i-L, both were in their late 80s when they were admitted to hospital, and neither received anything beyond "being made comfortable" as they died. Obviously, we would not have wanted intervention which would merely have prolonged their suffering, but I did wonder if they might have recovered. For instance, when I was in hospital in the 1960s, a fellow patient was 92 and making a good recovery after having a leg amputated. I don't know if that would happen now.

I feel that the care home situation during the pandemic has been a disgrace. It seems clear that people who stood a chance of recovery were not admitted to hospital but left to die without treatment. One woman on TV said that her mother said "Why me?" when told that she was not going to be admitted and given the oxygen that could have saved her life. The carers and her doctor had to tell her she was going to die, which she did. It seems utterly wrong that these people weren't given a chance. The mantra was "Stay home and protect the NHS" but we seem to have done that by leaving people to die in care homes.

My daughter and her husband, also a GP, do make home visits. They also visit care homes to treat the residents and continued to do this all through the Covid19 crisis. They gave palliative care to patients who were dying in care homes. Of course GPs are trying to treat patients via phone calls, video calls, and surgery visits now with the Covid19 situation as it is still.

The total care load of GPs is met by more GPs being employed by each surgery. That’s why there will often be many GPs listed at a surgery rather than the three or four that there used to be. My daughter is one of about ten GPs working at her surgery. Are Gransnetters actually saying that a GP should not be allowed to work part time? Why not? The rest of society has the right to work part time after the birth of children. If female GPs were not allowed to make this choice, they wouldn’t work at all until their children were all at school, and that wouldn’t help with the GP shortage. I don’t understand the fuss a lot of retirees on Gransnet make about young women working part time as a GP whilst raising young children.

Maddyone: I believe you have answered your own question. This generation of GPs complain they do not have time to give patients more than 10 minutes per patient consultation. If this is the case, how can the total case load of a surgery be meet by part-time GPs? Yes, my daughter, with two small boys, worked full time and with commute time 7 am to 8 pm. The local surgery here has a website and patient review page in which far too many comments of praise from temporary patients (tourists) here on holiday, able to go into the surgery and be seen by a GP. Long term and house-bound patients left with phone consultation option. The latter because GPs no longer want to make home visits. In my day, medicine, like nursing, a vocation of dedicated professionals committed to their patient’s welfare 365 days a year.

Should the U.K. go to a private/insurance funded health system I fear that many people will be excluded from getting treatment.
My son is in USA and he has some health care in with his work contract. He does pay monthly and does have a small amount of leeway as to the cover he chooses. His current one he pays a good amount (thousands of dollars) for their treatment (as a family) each year before the insurance kicks in!
Here in France 70% of the cost of care and medication is paid from taxes etc and patients pay the other 30% themselves or it is paid by a top up insurance. These insurances increase in cost as you get older - we now pay about £180 a month for the two of us.
I had a lymphoma diagnosed about 2 years ago and luckily all cancer treatment is state funded - if it were not most people would not be able to pay. My first week in hospital cost about€13000/and my first prescription €2000. This just gives you an idea of cost.
I agree with the poster who mentioned Matrons - since their demise things have been run by people not medically trained but with an eye on the finances.

I was diagnosed with a few life changing diseases just before lockdown. While in with my gp, I was explaining why I was feeling so very tired 6 months prior and he boringly said...oh there's no room to type all that...as he stared at the computer....dr google here I come?

Was on earth has GPs working part time got to do with care given? My daughter is a GP and works long hours, usually 11 to 12 a day, at her practice, where she works two days a week. She has another job which involves delivery of services, but although to be a qualified GP was necessary for the role, it does not involve contact with patients. So my daughter works three full days a week, usually about 36 hours per week. She has a two year old and six year old twins. Did you work those hours when you had such small children Gwyneth?

And don’t even get me started on how hard she worked during the Covid19 crisis!

Well, I can't praise them enough. For a few years I've had a very painful toe. In January I was told it can be operated on which could help, but I'd have to wait at least 6 months. Then came COVID, I decided it would be next year before it was done. To my amazement, I was done on Monday. I had excellent treatment, I don't yet know if it has worked, of course. But I'm grateful for the attempt and can't praise Harrogate District Hospital enough.

This policy of telephone consultations with Consultants is a step to far. I have just been given a diagnosis of blood cancer over the phone. That was 2 weeks ago. I finally received some information in the post on Saturday but still have not got an appointment for a face to face appointment at the Day clinic to discuss and start my treatment. No one answers the phone, you have to email and wait for a reply, so I obviously have many questions which I am finding hard to get an answer to.

Winter white yes , I agree with your comments. In the case of my brother he received excellent care in hospital. It was his own surgery and after care that was awful. This included the receptionists to the doctors.
On a slightly different thread, I wonder why the tax payer is contributing large amounts to the cost of training GPs when as in our surgery almost 75% only work part time. No wonder there is a shortage . Neither is it good value for the tax payer. Would it also not be more effective if GPs were specialists in a particular field to avoid long delays in a diagnosis. This would mean treatments for cancer, for example, could begin much earlier and more lives could be saved. Currently, GPs are only a gateway to further long drawn out waiting lists. In our surgery, despite being within your allotted appointment time, a GP will not even take a blood sample. Instead you have to often wait weeks to see a nurse to do this which causes even more delays. It begs the question what is the point of GPs in their current role?

This situation with the NHS has been building up gradually over the last few years and many have been unaware of it. Individual care may be very good in hospital, (but not universally so) but the care system for the elderly and vulnerable is largely privatised, unaccountable and patchy in quality, and therein lies the problem.

I feel very depressed about the fact that the NHS, both hospital and GP services have been ‘prepared’ for a US style takeover, with an insurance based system. I don’t believe GP services will ever return to pre Covid style of face to face appointments, without strict triage. Our local Clinical Commissioning Group has in fact informed us of this.

My mother gets very little help from the

NHS. She is 100 years old. I am her full time carer. It is soul destroying to see how she is treated by her GP
He will increase her pain medication freely
She had a UTI recently and the ambulance man complained his shift 10 minutes ago.I was shocked. I was left to pick up the pieces yet again.I am exhausted

My late mother had dire care at the hands of the NHS. I was staggered at what happened and even wrote to her MP when the hospital failed to act. I had the distinct feeling that this treatment was not news to the hospital or anyone else.

I think Sparklingsilver makes some excellent points. Sadly the opposition are not in a position to make much change as the Government have a majority of 80 and they have been stuffing the House of Lords with their cronies. It is the largest second house of any democratic country, surpassed only by China and totally unelected.
The Conservative party exist just to privatise. Yesterday Dido Harding was pronounced as the head of the new institution to replace Public Health England, yes in the middle of a pandemic! She has no experience in this area. She just happens to be married to a Tory MP who is in a group wanting insurance style health care USA style. She has failed miserably at everything she has previously been head of Talk Talk and Track and Trace to name two. The latter costing the tax payer millions and slowing any progress we may have made in halting Covid 19. The former resulting in personally finding myself talking to a scammer having my Talk Talk account number when they failed with customer account privacy measures. This new institution is to be handled by Serco, need I say any more? If I do please do your own research on this little treasure.

On the occasions when I have been in hospital the staff have been very pleasant and kind. It has been very obvious that they are totally overstretched and with one condition in A & E they kept saying I would be back in within the week for surgery. This happened three times and eventually after a night spent in Resus I was operated on. What a waste of money with ambulances, A & E visits and tests, not to mention the possibly life threatening condition and horrendous pain I was in. NHS is totally underfunded and overstretched.

With the emergency legislation brought in with Covid 19 even more contracts are being awarded privately, interestingly to yet more incompetent companies with off-shore tax accounts to Tory chums. We are being bled dry.

My mother is 99 and she gets nothing but the best care from our GP and local health services. She was admitted to hospital with a suspected heart problem during lockdown and the care and follow up has been amazing.

SS28 Thank you so much for starting this thread! Never I felt the need more for a ticking facility here!
Your points about the National Covid Service are so very well made. Hospital staff brave enough to risk their jobs are now admitting to there being empty wards, high levels of absenteeism among staff at all levels.
But acknowledging that large areas of the health service are currently underused or that treatment is inappropriate is sadly not going to improve the service.
The health service has been a political football for several decades. Funding it is not the issue, although many will claim it is, what's needed is a bloody good shake up country wide. And bring back matrons!!

This sounds very worrying, but my Dad aged 91 had very good care right up to end. He was ill and He was well looked after. I prey this continues for the future

I have found that the care in hospitals is far superior to the GP

Since lockdown I have had two clinic appointments at my local hospital, and the care was exceptional (I’m 75). I certainly didn’t feel I was being treated any differently than anybody else.
I had to ‘wait’ 2 weeks to get appointments - hardly a problem.