Telephone consultation for medical review

I was asked to attend to give a blood sample for hypertension, I was phoned and asked to do it again a fortnight later whilst monitoring my BP four times a day with a machine at home and also to bring in a urine sample why? couldn't tell me.
I then got a LETTER signed by my GP telling me I had another ongoing health issue. Still no phone call. Do I phone and ask for a telephone appointment or wait and see what happens.?
Is it the fault of the G.PS or of the circumstances they are expected to work with now? Why are so many leaving after training and saying it was not the job they or their patients expected of them? They appear to be administrators not practising DR's. Surgeries are training nurses to do the job of what in the past been the G.P's job.
Are we expecting too much or is the way of the future. A friend made me laugh when she got a telephone conseltation about a hemeroid problems she had said how do I show you down the phone.
All we can do is wait and see. Which really annoys me.

That’s a shocking story, Doodledog. Up until now I had always thought my surgery was good, but then I rarely ask for an appointment. I had a face to face blood pressure review earlier this year, which obviously they couldn’t do by phone as I don’t have (or need) a bp monitor, why the same isn’t happening with asthma I have no idea. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

If you can’t be given a peak flow meter prescription then you can, as Oopsadaisy has said, purchase one. There are some at around £10 on Amazon.

I feel that GPS get to see more people so get more money. I had a telephone medicine review with the nurse practitioner. Basically everything ok? Me - yes thanks. Then told that I needed to go to the surgery for a blind test with nurse practitioner. So 2 for 1 from their perspective. Just wasting time from mine.

It depends on the practice. Our doctors is a six week wait for call from a doctor to ascertain if he should see you, answer no, they are all sitting in their offices with empty waiting rooms. Why are they a special case, everyone else working. A telephone Ashma or Diabetic check is just laughable but serious. Accident and Emergency have been carrying them throughout. Are they waiting until they can retire on excellent pensions? I can see it going the American route paying to see them. Hard luck if you can't afford it.

At the same time as my asthma deteriorated I was found to have Graves Disease (a thyroid condition). I saw the endocrinologist who diagnosed it before lockdown, but after that the appointments have all been with a different consultant by telephone. After 18 months of quite toxic drugs I had an appointment for radiotherapy that would have ‘nuked’ my thyroid and left me dependent on replacement hormones for life, based on telephone conversations with someone I never met. I had regular blood tests, but after the initial conversation nobody examined me, checked my eyes, measured my thyroid, monitored my weight gain or did any of the things that would have happened in a routine face-to-face appointment. I was uneasy about getting the radiotherapy on this basis, so suggested that before having it I come off the cocktail of drugs I was taking, to see how my thyroid would cope on its own, and after a difficult month or so it stabilised. I am now being monitored but am off the list for the radiotherapy. Telephone appointments are not in all cases an adequate substitute for seeing a doctor.

I’m fortunate in that my asthma is very very mild, only get a bit wheezy in harvest time.

My last two reviews have been phone ones, she asked me to describe how I use my inhaler.

Suits me, as I feel a bit of a fraud being down as an asthma sufferer, but would want a proper consultation if I had it badly.

We have a friend who has been sent an appointment date for a phone consultation with his podiatrist.

My son has had his last 2 asthma reviews by telephone. It didn't amount to much more than 'are you ok?' He won't make a fuss, replied 'yes' and that's it for another year. My husband has had his sciatica physiotherapy appointment over the phone. 'Can you lean backwards more than x degrees?' How on earth would he know if I hadn't been there to say 'no' you're way less than that. I on the other hand have had two face to face appointments with a GP because I got lucky with a nurse practitioner who referred me to the on-call doctor. He's still monitoring my condition with bi-monthly face to face appointments.

Germanshepherdsmum

I do blame the GPS growstuff. They’re self employed contractors.

Yes, they are (or most of them), but they're funded by the government, which is pulling their strings and providing targets. Increasingly, they are employees of corporate organisations.

My telephone review is this week, I was asked if I wanted a face to face, as my Asthma has been stable since March I said a phone conversation would be fine.

You can buy a peak flow monitor to keep a check on your Asthma.

My Annual health review is next week and I have an Asthma form to take with me, that’s a face to face with an NP not my GP.

New normal yes I’ve had the same. They ask how your doing all of the questions you usually get asked. The only difference for me was I didn’t have to blow into anything just collated the questions and that was it.

I do blame the GPS growstuff. They’re self employed contractors.

Thanks Dickens and Doodledog. I have made a note to ask about MART. I don’t mean to make a fuss about my condition when others are so much worse off, but receiving the letter today brought home to me just how much things have changed - in addition to the pharmacy at the surgery now needing seven working days’ notice to dispense repeat prescriptions but not saying so on the website; Lord help the person who doesn’t know that and hopes to pick up their medication just before going on holiday … they seem to have run out of excuses now.

Germanshepherdsmum

A great shame. I fear so many people just won’t bother to try to consult a doctor, or things won’t be picked up in telephone or online consultations. Doctors found time to see us before covid - now they seem to have found a way of not doing so, whilst still, as I understand it, being paid by the NHS on a per capita basis. What have we come to?

Don't blame the GPs. The initiative has come from the bosses (England, at least - don't know about other countries).

It’s dreadful, these consultations should be face to face.
So many things can be missed in a telephone consultation.

GP practices are putting so much effort into avoiding actually seeing patients.

I recently wrote to my GP and hand delivered the letter, I had been unable to get through on the phone and my emails had been ignored!
In the letter I politely asked to be seen, it was to be the first time in over 2 years, I listed all the routine tests that should have been done and highlighted a mix up they hade made on my meds.
I got an appointment the next day.

I would try the same.

GSM

It looks like this is the future, then - if so, it’s not very bright. I don’t mean to complain about my condition, it’s nothing compared to others on GN, but I wonder just how much isn’t being detected due to the inaccessibility of GPS and even nurses and I really don’t understand why things are like this now. I could understand it during the lockdowns, but why haven’t we returned to some semblance of normality?

I think this is the new normality. We are being weaned off F2F appointments. I believe the NHS is in the process of being 'de-nationalised'.

If you look at the recent Health and Care Bill, you will see that we are heading down the road of 'Americanisation'.

We are in for a sea-change.

Glad to see you posting again, but sorry about the reason. I don't suffer from asthma, but I cannot imagine how wearying and frightening it must be sometimes.

It is absolutely not the same to talk to a doctor about something like asthma on the phone. How can you judge whether a wheeze is mild or serious - they have to listen to it. How can you judge whether doing something is easy or difficult with nothing to compare it to? They need to see you do it.

It's a ploy to force people to go private. But do ask about the MART regime, GSM? I can't tell you how much it's changed things for me.

I totally agree with other posts, having an asthma review on the telephone is ludicrous. I too have asthma and did indeed have a telephone review, a box ticking exercise in my view and shows little regard for how serious asthma can be. Care seems to be lacking in many directions sadly.

My neighbour was told her copd review was to be over the phone.

I won't repeat what she told them.

A great shame. I fear so many people just won’t bother to try to consult a doctor, or things won’t be picked up in telephone or online consultations. Doctors found time to see us before covid - now they seem to have found a way of not doing so, whilst still, as I understand it, being paid by the NHS on a per capita basis. What have we come to?

Germanshepherdsmum

Oh, growstuff, how difficult for you. It's not supposed to be like that is it? I hope all goes well for you.

I hope it doesn't get to that, Lucca, but I wouldn't put money on it. Frankly I despair. With all due respect to all the good GPs out there, covid seems to have provided an excuse not to actually see their patients any more. There was a time when that was entirely understandable, but that time has long passed. Its a very sad state of affairs.

I don't think it's to do with Covid any more. It's a policy change to move more "routine" reviews online. I've seen minutes of meetings where it's been discussed. Covid forced GPs to make online consultations work as best as they could and now it's how the future will be, unless there's any serious concern about results.

My asthma suddenly got so bad that I was referred to a respiratory consultant just before lockdown, and most of my appointments after that were by telephone. My asthma reviews with the practice nurse stopped, as we didn't know what was causing my breathing problems and they didn't want to get in the way of any advice from the consultant.

I have been put on the MART regime (Maintenance And Reliever Therapy) which has made a huge difference. I have a new inhaler called Respimat, which is normally used for COPD, but has recently been approved for asthmatics. I have two puffs once a day coupled with my DuoResp one, which I take both morning and evening, plus as a reliever when needed. I was so ill before this that I got no exercise at all during lockdown, and even going upstairs was difficult. I really struggled if I had to wear a mask, and life was pretty miserable. Now I am slowly getting back to normal, as my breathing has improved so much.

It was frustrating having the consultations over the phone, and going into hospital for the numerous tests I had, but it was finally decided that it was my asthma causing the problems, rather than the numerous scary things that had been considered.

If your peak flow isn't good, you might want to ask your doctor about the MART regime (or the nurse, as the asthma nurses often know as much as the GPs about it).

My asthma review in December was a face to face consultation with the asthma nurse.
She was unable to do a peak flow check, "due to the Covid situation". I however, had been keeping a record of my readings, which showed a downward trend.
She made a face to face appointment for my GP, the following day and I was referred back to the respiritory consultant.

If I had done it all online, I don't think, how unwell I was, would have been picked up.

Oh, growstuff, how difficult for you. It's not supposed to be like that is it? I hope all goes well for you.

I hope it doesn't get to that, Lucca, but I wouldn't put money on it. Frankly I despair. With all due respect to all the good GPs out there, covid seems to have provided an excuse not to actually see their patients any more. There was a time when that was entirely understandable, but that time has long passed. Its a very sad state of affairs.