To think GP surgeries shouldn’t be closed over Easter weekend? [Title edited by MNHQ]

I'm a palliative patient. A district nurse came to see me today to get bloods, and the hospice I'm under called to check I was ok and remind me they are there all weekend.

I'm fortunate to live in a county with an extremely good well - funded hospice. It should be like this everywhere.

I'm not in the UK but GP's surgeries are not open on holidays here either. Why should they be, they are as entitled to a break as anyone else, and they definitely need one. As a pp said, they are not an emergency service.

People can moan all they like about GPs not being open enough, and being paid too much etc, but the fact is, there aren’t enough GPs to offer more appointments. So clearly the pay and conditions aren’t THAT good. Because if being a GP was such an easy job, doctors would be queuing up to do it. It’s the same as teaching. People say teachers have it easy. Well why aren’t there loads of people wanting to become teachers? Do the maths!

GPs are allowed (in their contract) to close over Easter, so why wouldn’t they?

Because GP surgeries are not an emergency service. They are for routine things. If it genuinely cannot wait contact out of hours.

They need to recover from the daily abuse they get.

People will miss them when they eventually go private.

You do realise that there is a terrible shortage of GPs. If they worked weekends then they would have to take a day off in the week to compensate as most people don’t want to work 6 days a week. You would not clear a backlog.

There are more patients wanting appointments than there are available. They are underresourced. Why shouldn’t GP’s have the Bank Holidays off work - they are contracted to work them.

YABU, out of hours GP services are available. We called at 9am for kid with raging ear infection. Triaged by 111, triaged by nurse, saw GP at 3.00

Fantastic service.

I would not describe GPs as underfunded and under resourced at all.

I think they should be open today and should up their game all round

We moved to Canada - better quality of life and doctors are respected although Canada also has some problems with so many people wanting appointments. The other GP’s in DH’s practice have also left the UK.

😆 you are kidding right-slating someone for not living near a hospital-how crass can you get!

We train enough doctors in this country but the problem is that we can’t retain them because of obvious issues. Couple of Specialised doc I know of have left the country to work in countries that pay more. And why not?!
Doc need to be paid properly to keep them in their jobs, same for teachers. Teacher haemorrhage is another one.
We can’t have a healthy functioning nation economically with current physically unhealthy and and uneducated generation(s).

Actually youre wrong. My friend is having her cataracts done today on the NHS. My sister is working - shes an OT in the community

But what work?

If I phone the gp surgery, it's for routine stuff, vaccinations, repeat prescription for hrt, all bits that can wait 4 days or more.
If I have a heart attack, I'll go to A&E and pray it's not being clog up by those who can't use the services correctly.

It’s a mess. I have literally given up on my gp. If you can get past the receptionist (who literally should be in charge of border control - if she was at the helm, our borders would be hermetically sealed) you cannot get an appointment. I found a lump, queued for 45 minutes on the phone ( you arent allowed to go in person) to be told I couldn’t have an appointment for 4 weeks. I was freaking out and 4 weeks was just way too long. I’m incredibly fortunate that I could pay to see a private gp the following day, and it’s sorted now. But, I’m a net contributor and I would really bloody like to see people who cannot afford to go outside the NHS get treated in a reasonable timeframe.

I’m not sure if you are in the UK but it’s a religious holiday. It’s normal. People get paid extra to work on bank holidays. If I was a GO I’d think I’d be looking forward to 4 days off.
There are still 24/7 services.

The closing on every fourth Wednesday is a compulsory thing set by nhs England/CQC. Believe me - most staff see it as a complete waste of time!

Its compulsory stuff like governance training, diversity, etc.

I have far too much work to do to have to down tools and attend training once every four weeks. Particularly when it is held on a Wednesday, which is not my normal working day but I still have to go in for the compulsory training!

Oh - and we are funded to work weekends. In our PCN there are four surgeries - we all open late and early one day a week, we take it in turns to open on a Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday and bank holiday. Admittedly for pre booked patients but then again, the GP practice is not an emergency service.

We have to provide a service even on Xmas Day - rather surprisingly we have very few patients wanting to book an appointment on Xmas Day!

If GP’s were funded to work over the Bank Holiday, they would takes days off in the week in lieu or would you want them to work a 7 day week? There aren’t enough GP’s to open any more hours. DH was a GP for 25 years but had enough and handed back his contract. No one took the practice on so thousands of patients then had to find another practice but with no additional GP’s to cover the increased number of patients.

Have you checked that they are actually closed? I am working on reception on Easter Monday for our GP out of hours service. Just me and one GP for pre booked appointments. We are in a circuit of four GP practices in our area - each one is open one day over the bank holiday and patients from all 4 surgeries can be prebooked into an appointment at any practice.

We aren't open as a usual day - the partners cant afford to pay the staff.

You have to remember - GP surgeries are an business - they get a certain amount of money from the NHS but they still have to pay their staff out of that money. Our surgery most definitely couldn't afford to pay every GP, nurse and admin staff double time to work a bank holiday. The admin staff are already on minimum wage with no sign of an increase due to the cuts being made to the funding received.

GPs should def be funded to work on bank holidays and provide half day/reduced service on Saturdays to keep on top on the backlog.
Our GP closes for half a day on a Wednesday every 4 weeks for staff training. Can anyone shed any light on what they actually do? Surely staff training needs and should happen, but does it need to be this frequent? How many patients could they have seen in this
time?!
We are an ageing population that is generally more sick than precovid times. The amount of kids that have been off school at anyone time this term in particular at my children’s school is between 10-15% , never mind staff absence. There’s been all sorts of nasty bugs that’s they end up passing it on to their parents and their grandparents who end being ill for days/weeks.
This is not good for economy.

It’s not unreasonable that GPs have the bank holiday off, under the current system. However, it’s unreasonable that the current system is so chronically outdated and underfunded that most people have no access to out of hours gp assistance and Easter means no assistance for four days, making next week an absolute nightmare to get an appointment.

No disrespect to our fantastic medical workers (and indeed non-medical workers), this is a government and infrastructure issue.

GP surgeries are not contracted to work banks holidays. Would you work for free? Didn’t think so. This a government problem, not a GP problem.

GPs aren't NHS employees though. They are self-employed and they have contracts to provide services to the NHS.

So why should they alter their hours?

@softkitty79 there are so many of these sorts of questions, though, so maybe maybe there is an agenda.

I sometimes wish we weren't, as the added workload for the days before and after the Bank holiday make it extra stressful!
However, we aren't contracted to open and other services like couriers for lab samples and local pharmacies would all have to open as well.