Why aren’t GP Surgeries open at the weekends?

[Nosleepforthismum]

Wondering why most GP surgeries don’t open at the weekends? Is it because of GP shortages and not wanting to piss off the already overworked and overwhelmed doctors? Due to a shortage of GP’s in general or some other reason?

Coming off the back of another A&E trip this weekend for my three year old DS. He gets croup unusually severely and his breathing always gets extremely laboured which requires Dexamethasone to bring it back under control. We’ve done this trip a number of times as often he gets ill over a weekend or a bank holiday and so inevitably we are sent to A&E. The times he’s fallen ill on the week days we’ve been seen and treated by the GP.

Would it not be a better system if GP surgeries were open at the weekend to relieve the pressure on A&E? Am I just being a bit too simplistic to think this should work?

Your specific surgery may not be open but GP services are available and 111 will direct you

Because staff aren't working 24/7.

Gp surgeries are open not in the same way but you can get gp appointments out of hours through 111.

Once upon a time our city had an walk in out of hours service which perfectly filled the GP gap at the weekends (and evenings), taking pressure off A&E. Sadly budgets mean it’s long gone.

Our GP operates in a network which does provide some weekend and evening appointments. It’s limited but very useful.

GP’s sometimes do work out of hours as locum in hospitals which is different from a+e especially if a child needs seen.

We were prescribed dex to have at home for recurrent croup. We were at a and e practically every week and it was a massive waste of resources when we could give it to our child at home as soon as we spotted the signs. Doesn’t answer your question but might be worth asking as it saved us so much time and days off work due to croup inevitably occurring overnight.

Mine opens two Saturdays a month so people who work can come.

Why is this always the answer? Running a 7 day a week service does not require all staff to work 7 days a week, as any hospital or shop will tell you!

There was talk pre Covid of GP Surgeries opening on a weekend, but it’s not been mentioned since, ours had only just started doing early morning and late evening appointments when Covid hit.

It requires more staff.
111 covers GPs on weekends.

GPs aren’t meant to deal with emergencies so there is no need for them to be open at the weekend. There aren’t enough doctors and full weekend opening would be expensive.
A&Es are ONLY for accidents and emergencies (big clue in the name) unless you’ve had a bad accident you can’t deal with yourself or an emergency you should not go.
Drop in centres are open at the weekend and if you need to see a medical professional at the weekend you can just ‘drop in’ (clue in the name, there’s a theme).
I hope that helps.

It's because week-ends are when we all socialise and see family and they would be prevented from doing that if they had to work. It's very bad for your work/life balance.

Because GPs have weekends off

1. Because 111 is for out of hours with access to out of hours GP/Advanced nurse practitioners who can assess and prescribe what is clinically needed.
2. Because GPs are probably working an excess of 40/50 hour weeks and need days off like the rest of us.

Sorry your little one has this, it’s really scary, mine suffered with this too. Hope he is feeling better.

No inherent reason why they shouldn't though. Lots of health services do run 24/7. In my area there is still a walk in clinic that covers a lot of weekend hours though not 24/7.

It's partly tradition, GPs have always worked mostly 9-5 (with skeleton cover for out of hours) since the job existed. Nowadays it would be very difficult to fund and recruit to.

But it DOES require more staff, @TeamPlaying.

GP services are on their knees as it is - I don’t see how they could find the extra manpower to work weekends too.

I've often wondered similar tbh.

Our GP is a bigger place nowadays, it used to be a small place with 1 GP that saw you from birth till death, but it grew and now you don't see the same GP twice in a row.

Looking at their website, they've 6 GPs, couple of them do three days a week, others do more.

You'd think they could rota it so a couple did Saturdays and Sundays and had days off in the week.

But I do t know the ins and outs of it all and assume GPs also work elsewhere when not at the Medical Centre

I live in one of the few places that still operates an out of hours service. Not 111 but actual out of hours.

But I agree and would go so far as to suggest lack of GP provision and proper care in the community is why A and E and hospital services are so overwhelmed.

It really really needs to be tackled.

There is barely the staff for a five day week, never mind seven. Not just gps but the other staff as well. Retention is an issue so it’s not just a case of recruiting more, they need to be able to keep them. Which won’t happen when most people think it is okay to treat nhs staff like crap.

With a lack of GPs it's hardly going to happen. It would be costly to open every GP at weekends for emergencies instead of 111.

No-one's asking them to work 24/7. We're talking about a Saturday morning, say, not overnight.

I don't get it either. If some NHS clinics can run on a Saturday morning, I don't see why GPs and actually dentists can't, as part of their standard hours. Close on a midweek half day instead if you need to. Some GP staff might actually like to work a Saturday morning on a rota if it means they get a half day off in the week now and again, when it might be useful to them for childcare.

Well, they shouldn’t. No other doctors do, and neither does most of the working population. There should probably be G.P’s based in a&e departments too.

I work in a gp surgery we don’t open at weekends but the other practice in our village does and we have access to book our patients to see a gp or a nurse there weekday evenings and Saturday daytime.Two of our own gp’s often work there on a Saturday.We do open some Saturday mornings to offer a flu clinic.

Our GP belongs to a group who offeres out of hours service but you have to go via 111 to get an appointment. You will then be directed to the surgery covering this particular weekend but 111 does a triage first and may suggest a pharmacy first or the A&E/hospital GP service, depending why you call.

They certainly used to do Saturday clinics. I remember my husband having a tooth abscess and the dentist hadn't given him a long enough course of antibiotics. We were visiting my mum and she rang her GP and asked for an appointment. He got one that morning, got a new prescription and was feeling much better within hours. Those were the days! Goodness knows what would have happened now.