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?

It appears A&E aren't covered on weekends either.

My granddaughter waited more than 6 hours last Sunday evening to be seen by the max fax team because of a large, deep gash just under her eye.

They didn't turn up and she was eventually sent home with three steri strips which had been ripped off before she went to bed.

She now has a rather long, wide scar which is taking ages to heal.

She was taken back to a more local hospital the following day as the wound was still weeping and they were shocked that nothing more had been done the night before. They said it was too late to do anything the next day as the wound was healing.

People ARE becoming aware of it. There is a 3 week wait at least just for a blood test now, near me. Only a few years ago you used to be able to go to the clinic straight from seeing your GP, take a ticket from the machine on the wall and wait, maybe 20 minutes or so. Bloods taken, results back a few days later.

Ear syringing used to be a couple of weeks' wait. I don't think they even do it now, or microsuction. You just have to pay to go to a private clinic instead.

Used to open on a Saturday and offered out of hour’s services but that probably hasn’t been the case for 30 plus years

They won’t pay them.
A local surgery has employed physician associates to replace GPs to save money. You’d extremely lucky to see a nurse here or get an appointment. So there’s no way they will employ GPs to work Saturdays. What’s even more bizarre is that the local surgeries have been bought up by a foreign company and had made all these cuts to save money yet they charge the NHS (or whoever they are responsible to ) a hefty amount per patient every time they get seen. Race to the bottom.

I don't think there is a lack of GPs in the UK, is there? There is a lack of funding to allows practices to hire them. If the government wanted there to be more GPs even during the week, they could allow practices to use their funding that way (instead of on things like pharmacists, Physician associates, care co-ordinators etc), and it would be possible to increase appointments and reduce A&E pressure already. It wouldn't even need further funding, just a change in the rules around it. The government could then choose to increase funding to a level that would allow more weekend and evening opening, if they wanted to. I don't think lack of actual GPs is the problem. There are lots of unemployed GPs, and lots of junior doctors who can't get training places.

Yes, that is still not all staff working 24/7, as the post I was quoting would have it.

Another poster claimed it’s because GP staff can’t work weekends because it’s bad for them. I’m afraid any knee jerk reactions like that go down very badly with anyone in the many, many other public services which do operate 7 days a week. It comes across as “but we’re special” which does a disservice to people involved and skips the actual complexities involved.

Oh thank you, that’s really interesting to know. We were told we couldn’t have a prescription as they would need to see him but he was quite a bit younger then.

If you have drop in centres where you live. We don't. We can access a GP via 111 though. You get given an appointment time, not just turn up.

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?

Or in the evenings.

After a long hard week doing four 10 minute patient consultation calls in the morning, three in the afternoon, filling out a life insurance report, waiving prescriptions through to the pharmacist, checking their investments on the stock market after markets open, and reading some technical articles in between, the average GP is well and truly cream-crackered after an average working day. Now imagine that is multiplied five times. Not only that, but five days in quick succession.

On both Saturdays and Sundays golf clubs are open, pubs and other leisure activities open their doors. GPs need to relax and unwind after a very stressful working week. A salary of £100,000 a year plus a pension of £60,000 requires some serious leisure time to make it all work while.

But they'd have time off in the week for relaxing, like other people who work weekends.

Where I live, we have a GP out of hours service so people like the OPs child would be seen by a GP rather than have to go to A&E.

The GP out of hours service is run next door to A and E the local hospital, so people who need GP rather than A and E are redirected there.

It sounds like this isn't the case everywhere? That's a pity as I think it works well.

lots of other doctors don’t work weekends

a decent part of the working population don’t work weekends either

there are GPs based in A&E departments and some patients will be streamed on arrival to see them if they have appropriate problems

You can also access out of hours GP via walk in centres, via 111, various local out of hours services specific to each area.

Thank you, he’s feeling much better and back to causing chaos at home!

So, we’ve always contacted 111 for my DS who have always directed us to A&E.

We’ve had a out of hours GP call us back before via 111 for a separate thing with my DD who basically said he couldn’t prescribe anything unless she was seen and arranged an appointment with our usual GP as it fell within usual working hours (but I missed the 8am deadline to book an appointment) so I’m not sure how the out of hours GP system works if they need to see a patient in person and it’s at the weekend. Are they sent to a drop in clinic or A&E in those circumstances?

From a business point of view it must cost a lot more (using the one example above) to contact the GP surgery, to be told to call 111, be referred to an out of hours GP, to then be referred back to the same GP surgery to be seen by the GP you tried to initially make an appointment with.

I’m not trying to say that the current GP’s need to work even more hours than they already do. I think there needs to be more GP’s and to have them on a rota I suppose. I might be very naive but I can’t see it costing any more than the very convoluted current system.

The government wont fund weekends. They have already drastically cut their funding to GP surgeries as it is.

I work at a GP surgery. We have recently lost a receptionist and a secretary which the surgery cant afford to replace. This means an already overstretched admin team are now being stretched more. We already open two evenings a week and every third weekend - we actually sometimes struggle to fill the weekend appointments as people dont want to come on a Saturday or Sunday!

Most (if not all) NHS trusts have an out of hours service which are open whenever the surgery is closed. You ring 111 and they will advise you of the best place to go - urgent treatment centre, OOH GP surgery or A&E.

My husband’s surgery opens on Saturday mornings. They all take turns to man a clinic. They had so many no shows, cancelled appointments and unused appointments that they’ve now started to use the time for flu jab clinics instead.

Evening appointments (opening til 8pm once a week) have been more successful, but 111 and GP Plus clinics seem to do a good job of plugging the weekend gap.

I agree but the problem is that the rest of their family probably aren't working shifts, or they are working 9-5.

There's a reason it's Sunday Brunch/Sunday Lunch/Saturday Night at the Movies! Whoever heard of Wednesday lunch?

It’s this kind of bollocks which means less and less doctors want to be GPs.

It is well recognised to be one of the hardest jobs in medicine. The hours might be less antisocial but they are long, relentless (40-60 patient contacts a day) and it is a high risk job (because patients are undifferentiated and have to be seen in very short consultations without access to diagnostics of the at a very early or unclear stage of an illness).
It is. 12 hours day of spotting the needles in the haystacks.

Working less than full time is almost mandatory in order not to burn out. And actually is now also the case in many many other specialities it just isn’t so obvious what those doctors hours are and no one hates them like they hate GPs so don’t spout on about it in the press.

in my own medical specialty being less than full time patient facing is entirely normal. No one criticises me like they do the GPs and I’d say day to day my job is way easier and more supported.

“there are GPs based in A&E departments and some patients will be streamed on arrival to see them if they have appropriate problems
You can also access out of hours GP via walk in centres, via 111, various local out of hours services specific to each area.”

Blimey, @Gocompared , you’ll be telling us next that nobody has to wait more than 10 minutes in a&e!

Comically wide of the mark. Can tell which papers you’re reading 😂.

GPs will have upwards of 35/40 patient consultations a day (taking responsibility for every prescription signed)

Because they are not NHS.
They are small independent businesses who contract services to NHS and they choose not to open at weekends.

Ah now I made no promises about timescales 😂

My GP surgery is pants. (The actual GPs are great but the appointment system is awful) You have to call at 8.10am for an appointment, wait in a queue, maybe 40 min plus to find that they might not have any appointments that day....so then repeat the exercise the next day.....and possibly the next day after that. Can't start going to work in case they say there is an appointment at eg 10.40, ....but already late even if you don't get an apt!! You can book for that day only, at 8.10.
Honestly getting Taylor swift tickets was quicker and easier!

☹️

Viz Magazine. Slightly changed to avoid copyright infringement. It was most certainly posted with a sense of dry humour. We need that to cut through the dangerous seriousness of political mastery.

But I do not believe GPs do an average of 50 consults a day. If they do the NHS is already finished. It is no longer fit for purpose and we need cross-party support for the next 50 years to redefine and redevelop it. Politics needs to be out of the equation. The NHS needs to stop fixing problems. Public responsibility needs a literal carrot and a metaphorical stick.