to want to change my GP (please tell me honestly if I am over-reacting)

[fledtoscotland]

today DS1 woke up with a temperature, eating ok so just put it down to a virus. Paracetamol helped and by lunchtime he was fine. then noticed pus coming out of his ear. phoned the surgery to get emergency appointment and receptionist said gp would phone me today but no guarantee we would be seen. (background is that DS1 has recurrent ear injections and bilateral perforated ear drums. audiology are monitoring him cos he still isnt speaking at 2yrs old). Told receptionist that if we werent going to be seen this afternoon I would take him to A&E. gp phoned me back and saw us. told me that i was over reacting. he has infections in both ears btw. given us abx and paracetamol & ibuprofen. noticed that the doses are wrong (i'm a nurse and give medication advice to parents daily so know for a fact that he has prescribed by the old way of age not weight). i asked for an ENT referral and got told that it is totally unnecessary and there is nothing wrong with his ears

apart from today this practice missed my ovarian cyst (picked up on 7wk scan at epau) and resulted in emergency surgery when i was 9 weeks pregnant that DS1 and I are both lucky to have survived. GP nonchalantly said "oh i forgot to pass on the details in the letter from the EPAU" . another time GP refused to see DS2 with temp of 41 and rash - took him straight to the childrens hospital where he had an amoxicillin allergy.

AIBU to change practices or am I just expecting too much from my over paid/underworked GP?

[Schnullerbacke]

Nope, you are not over-reacting. You should be able to trust your GP and if you cannot, then you should change. Its your and your children's health and you should feel confident with your care provider.

[beaniesinthebucketagain]

YANBU!!!

wishing your ds a speedy recovery!
(and also my little mans 2 and doesnt talk)

[FlamingoBingo]

YANBU

My DD3 didn't talk until after she turned 2 either.

[alana39]

YANBU at all. for you - one of these incidents on their own you might be able to put down to experience but you are not getting the service that you should expect (and have paid for).

BTW DS2 wasn't speaking at 2, wasn't very intelligible at 3, now just turned 5 and never bloody stops. And that's without any hearing problems.

[islandofsodor]

YANBU.

I had an ear infection a few months ago. Tha pain was excruciating. I phoned my doctors and they saw me the same day. To expect a child to wait is unreasonable.

Added to that the wrong dosage and other stuff this is unacceptible and remonds me why I love my doctors surgery and its staff so much.

[Snooch]

Unbelievable. You are SO not being unreasonable. How can you ever trust your GP again after all of this???

[EightiesChick]

Hell no, you are not BU. Move practices and tell them why you are doing it. Who needs hassle like this?

[acebaby]

YANBU - and your poor DS should get a referral to the ENT clinic asap. The only other thing you could do is book an appointment with the senior partner (assuming that is not this man) and the practice manager - for the sake of other patients.

I did this with my GP after the receptionist refused to arrange an emergency appointment or even a telephone consultation for DS2, when he had a temperature and spreading rash (at the age of 3 weeks). Instead, I was told it was not a medical emergency and offered an appointment 4 days later. After my informal complaint they tightened up their procedures for fast-tracking appointments for young babies and provided re-training for the receptionists.

[cupcake123]

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. Having a good relationship with your GP is really important and if I had been treated as dismissively as you have been, I think I would be feeling very pissed off and resentful towards him. I would change GPs or practice if necessary, if I were you. There are good doctors out there

[loobylu3]

If you are not happy/ have no confidence in your GP then you should certainly change surgeries.
I hope you don't mind if I just add a little bit from a medical point of view (as a GP myself). This may be obvious to you as a nurse!
The first episode with your sons ear infections (otitis media). It sounds as if he had a perforated ear drum following the OM. The pain tends to lessen or stop once the drum has perforated. You mention that your son has recurrent OMs and has had perforations in the past. I'm not sure how many he has had but some children are v prone to OM at a young age and do tend to grow out of it. Referral is not usually necessary. Here is a little link about specialist referral for OM.

www.gpnotebook.co.uk/simplepage.cfm?
ID=154468425

Here is another link for specialist referral for glue ear (I'm not sure if this is what he has or not). Sometimes ventilation tubes are inserted for this.
www.gpnotebook.co.uk/simplepage.cfm?ID=141230153

I'm not sure that the treatment your son was given was medically inappropriate but obviously the way in which you were spoken to was! (The antibiotic treatment eg amoxicillin would normally be the standard dose for age, 125mg/5mls, etc. so I'm not sure that this was really a mistake).

The second episode concerning your ovarian cyst- I can't really comment on this one as I don't know how you presented, etc

The third episode where the GP refused to see your son with a v high temp and a rash sounds v worrying. I'm amazed that this happened and it obviously shouldn't have.

If you are not happy with your GP, for whatever reason, you should change. it is also helpful to write to the practice manager if you are not happy about the treatment you have received as they will (or should) want to look into what happened.
Good luck

[babyicebean]

If you are not happy then change - I did and I can't be happier now.

My last doctors had a system where they didn't make appointments and you had to hope the receptionist was in a good mood.You rang at 8 and begged for an appt.I tried for a week to get an apptointment and you start ringing at five to eight and if you actually got through all appointments were gone - this was usually at about ten past eight.

Boychild screamed for three days solid (it seemed) and was generally a grumpy git.Ended up in A&E and he had two ear infections and a water infection.

I had thrown up for a week solid, no appointment to be had, went to see my mam and she rang her doctor who saw me in less than an hour and got me admitted to a surgical ward as they thought my appendix was about to burst - turned out it was an infection of somekind but not a way to loose a stone and a half.

Husband went for his vasectomy consultation waited for the date to come through.Ended up having to chase the doctor who had forgotten to send the details through.Third very much unplanned child later got an appointment.Not that I would change boychild but had been playing vatican roulette which is definately not a reliable form of contraception.

[crokky]

Change practices immediately.

[Acinonyx]

YANBU - got an emergency appt just yesterday for dd's ear infection. Very weird gp you have there. I would also write to the practice manager and explain why you are changing gp.

[MaggieBehaveOutGuising]

why not? you don't owe your gp!

[MatNanPlus]

Move and send a letter to the relevent people.

[Iklboo]

GMC may be interested, especially with the missed diagnosis but it's not a given that they'll strike him off.
Given the full nature of your complaint they may decide that the best route at first is your local complaints procedure (practice/PCT/Care Quality Commission).
They probably would, however, contact the practice/PCT to ask if there had been other complaints about him.
Check their website GMC

[stressed2007]

I have exactly the same treatmnet with my son who has same condition - GP not interested and frequently end up in A&E

[mylovelymonster]

YANBU at all. GPs are only human and not infallible, and if yours seems to be less competent than you are comfortable with (am being polite) then not a jot of an issue for you to change GPs/surgeries.
Hope your little boy gets better v soon x

[mumto3boys]

YANBU! There are some very good GP surgeries and we are very lucky to use one of them. You don't have to put up with this.

Just to show you the contrast - ours is open from 6.45am to 7.30pm. Also open for a couple of hours sat and sun. If they have no appointments but I am worried (2 of my boys have quite bad asthma) they say to bring them straight down and they are seen. If all turns out to be fine, I am certainly not made to feel neurotic, and am told to bring them back if I am worried.

Repeat prescriptions are done within a day, the receptionists are fab - one even sorted out a hospital choose and book cock up for me, even though it wasn't really her job.

Its bad enough being very worried about your child, to be made to feel neurotic is horrible, and for him to forget to refer you is just awful!

Change GP asap!

[loobylu3]

It would be wrong to go directly to the GMC to complain as suggested by one poster. The correct route would be to speak/ write to the practice manager. The incidents can then be investigated within the practice. If you do not feel that you receive a satisfactory explanation as a result of this, the PCT would be the next place to go.
It is really unfair to talk of striking doctors off the register with such a limited knowledge of the facts. Things are not always as black and white as you assume.

[CantThinkofFunnyName]

Just to add my comments here that if you feel unhappy then you should change but moreover, do loobylu3's posts. They are v helpful and in particular, the comments re reporting to GMC.

[acebaby]

loobylu3 - I think that it was me whose newborn DS wasn't seen with a high temperature and rash. I took him to A&E, and he was admitted for the day for observation and later sent home with antibiotics as a precaution. It was a receptionist, not the GP who refused me an appointment. Our GP is fantastic (when we can get in to see her) !

Sorry for the hijack! But my relevant point is that making an informal complaint to the practice manager and senior partner, rather than going through 'official channels' seemed like a positive thing to do. It was reassuring to me that the surgery acknowledged their mistake, apologised and rethought their procedures.

[fledtoscotland]

Thanks everyone. have already made a complaint to the practice manager earlier this year but things havent improved. Have tried to register with another GP today but in Scotland the policy is that unless you move geographical area, you are not automatically entitled to move GPs.

loobylu3 - thanks for the links. he has had 4 perf ear drums in the last 12 months. Audiology have said that it isn't glue ear but he may have narrowed tubes which is preventing the fluid from draining properly. SALT referrals in our area take 4mths+ to be seen so I'm anxious to rule out anything else quickly. We had a couple of months with ear infections all the time earlier in the year and I thought things were improving but now we seem to be back in square one. I dont really know much about ears - in my work we tend to refer specialties on to the relevant dept. Have you got any suggestions about where I go from here with his ear?

[loobylu3]

fled to scotland- just saw your post. I am really surprised about the system in Scotland. Here in England, you can change surgery really easily! Could you speak to the local PCT to request a change of practice? Alternatively, there may well be one GP within the surgery that you find a lot more helpful than some of the others- word of mouth is often the best way to find out!
Your son obviously suffers from recurrent ear infections (with perforations). I can see that you are also v concerned about his speech. The GP should usually recheck your son to ensure that the perforation has healed within a few weeks. If it is not healing, referral would be sensible. You can certainly request an ENT referral even if it has healed well but the trouble is they (the ENT surgeons) may prefer 'watchful waiting' at the moment. He is still young and the Autumn/ Winter is always the worst time of year for ear infections, etc. Unfortunately, there is no treatment to stop him getting ear infections. As he grows, the 'ear tubes' will grow and make him less prone. If he does develop a persistent glue ear which is effecting his speech/ social development, they may well consider grommets.
I hope this helps! Good luck