My GP has told me that 80% of their appointments don't need a GP appointment.

Sinusitis x 2Chest infection tion
These examples accounts for a lot of the 80% with people still believing that these conditions require antibiotics.

The vast majority of yhese are viral, more symptomatic but not different to a cold. Antibiotics do NOT help and are NOT required. Yet patients still demand them and too many doctors still themselves believe in the benefit of antibiotics and/or can't be bothered to argue with yheir patients and prescribe them anyway.

Of course, that means that as soon as a family member come down with another virus, they are back demanding a gp appointment for antibiotics...

@WatchThisGladys yes it does vary from surgery to surgery 🙁
Mine (touch wood) is brilliant and you can usually get a same day or next day appointment.
My mums one and my mother in laws one (2 different towns so 2 different surgeries) are like getting into Fort Knox.

Problem is, I've tried to see the Pharmacist for common ailments scheme and there's been no one available. I'm happy to try other options, but the other options do need to be viable.

First thing I would do would be to change my GP. Anyone who makes such a stupid comment is the kind of GP that misses out on important symptoms.

Also like others I’ve tried the pharmacy several times for prescriptions - latest for oral thrush. I’ve had this many times before and the prescription is simple. Boots told me they could give me nothing and I had to see a GP. Crazy.

I think 80% includes conditions that they don't think needs treatment ie come back if you still have pain in 6weeks type thing

My daughter's appointments could very easily be done over the phone. She takes sertraline and has to have reviews every 12 weeks. But, she is a teacher and being told she will get a call between 1 and 6pm on Tuesday is no use.

She uses the online system to make a face to face appointment because their phone appointment system is unsuitable for purpose for people who work, and have no phone access.

She has had very little success getting the reviews changed to school holidays as they just refuse to re-prescribe without the review, and won't flag her for review until the due date.

So she is one of the 80%, 4 times a year. And it is their system that causes that, not "the patient".

Yes some protocols don’t make sense. We recently moved house and therefore GP surgeries. DH has a long standing repeat prescription, and before the new surgery would do it they wanted to see him face to face. Ok, makes sense as a general rule, they want to see people before prescribing a long term medication, fair enough. But no space for the exception that DH’s prescription is an EpiPen. He gets a new one every few years when they expire. He hasn’t become non-allergic, and if he had (if that had magically happened), the GP wouldn’t know that anyway. So he went in, they said “I can see you’ve got an anaphylactic allergy, I’ll prescribe the EpiPen”. Waste of the GP’s time.

This didn't work well at my previous GP practice, possibly because the practice was one GP short and the receptionists tried to fob too many people off with nurses, physiotherapists etc when it wasn't appropriate. When a customer satisfaction survey was carried out last year, this practice came bottom of the local rankings. Luckily for me, I had left by then and my new practice is much better.

There’s another side to this. They tell you you don’t need to see a GP but then the nurses have limited knowledge and you end up being ill for much longer than needed. I recently used 5 appointments and one out of hours slot to sort a problem that would have been solved straight away if I had been “allowed” to see a GP. Instead my knowledge of my own health was ignored and incorrect assumptions were made.

GP’s jack of all trades and master of none

so many of them are useless and waste our time as much as we Apprently waste theirs

My GP probably said that about me, neglecting to realise because they were dismissing me without doing any tests or diagnostic work and just patronising me telling me I was fat and unfit and needed to sort myself out.

I had undiagnosed Diabetes for years that a simple blood test could have diagnosed, as soon as I received a diagnoses and treatment the weight has fallen off and I feel much better. It just took me buying myself a continuous glucose monitor and then showing up to A&E to actually get that diagnosis and insulin.

How else would you be directed to the consultant though? Surely if the GP refers you to one, then it’s above their level of experience and requires the specialist.

Consultants couldn’t have random people phoning up insisting they should be seen, so surely the GP is the gatekeeper and best person to decide? Imagine the former 😂 “I have an ingrown hair Consultant”

I realise you said often so I assume it’s an ongoing issue so I agree that’s different and a waste of time

Agree with this completely. Why can't we book an appointment with the actual specialist we need. I had a problem with my foot, I knew what it was, ai knew what the treatment was, but had to go to ay least 5 appointments of varying types and two of those were with a gp to end up with the specialist I needed.

Really? 80%? That sounds more like a frustrated GP having a bit of a rant on a bad day than a reliable assessment of how many people who attend GP appointments need them, to be honest.

I get 3 months worth at a time.

I've tried pharmacists for my children and they always tell me to go to GP ,because they don't like treating children ( for skin condition)

In addition, the NHS Protocol for prescriptions to be given 28 days at a time must be using GP time unnecessarily. I'm now on blood pressure meds for life; at 67, I may well live another 20 years or more. Making me and all other like me request a prescription every 28 days ties up a GP more often than is necessary.

I fail to see why this is the "protocol".

I’ve had the same with pharmacists. The last 3 times I went to them was for an ear infection, a child with conjunctivitis, and then period delay pills. They had the treatment there and knew what was needed, but needed a doctor to prescribe all 3.

I’m really torn on this one and honestly don’t know how to vote. GPs can absolutely fob people off and miss serious stuff I ve seen it happen more than once. But at the same time, loads of minor things just need a prescription that a GP has to sign because the meds aren’t available over the counter.
Pharmacists taking some of that workload is, imo, a good thing.
I’m not saying I’ve got the magic fix for the whole GP system, but maybe, just maybe, some sort of properly trained AI triage tool could help.
I’ll be honest, for the last few health worries in our family, I used bloody ChatGPT. And it was right every single time. We can usually get GP appointments in 1–2 weeks via the online system, and while waiting, I just typed the symptoms in. It gave the correct diagnosis and even suggested which tests to ask for.
When we finally saw the GP, I asked for those exact tests (for my DC and for myself). They were done, and the diagnosis was confirmed.
So maybe an AI system that suggests likely tests or possible causes based on symptoms could take a bit of pressure off GPs.
But it should always come with an option to override if someone’s anxious or doesn’t trust the AI, they should still be able to insist on seeing a real GP first

This 100%

This is why I love my GPs E-Consult system. You give a detailed description of your issues, can attach pictures/videos, ask for a specific Dr to look at it.

The GPs have time set aside to triage them, and decide if you need a F2F, phone, nurse or whatever appointment. I've never waited more than 24 hours for a response and with some urgent issues I've been in front of a GP in hours.

That's people turning up.

Gp they can triage before attending

I haven’t voted as they seem quite polarised. Some sense needs to be applied when going to the doctor and appointments aren’t easy to get. I may be wrong, but when I hear comments like that, I wonder if it’s a GP who just dismisses health issues (there are excellent, good, medium and thoroughly shit ability in every profession). It’s the same when I hear a GP on tv saying everything is anxiety or whatever - I just think is it or are they putting everything down to that? There are so many threads on people being fobbed off, or refused help when diagnosed.

In the past year for either myself or my dc, I've tried my local pharmacy for the following:
Sinusitis x 2
Chest infection tion
Impetigo
The pharmacist couldn't help on any occasion because the prescribing "rules" are so strict.
Example:
Yes - your child has impetigo and I agree with you i am also concerned regarding it going into their ear canal, however you'll have to go the drs for the antibiotics as I can only prescribe of there are more than 3 active areas of infection (there were 2..)
Utterly pointless