Or this normal GP practice?

[firsttimemum77]

It is a nightmare getting an appointment with my GP. You have to phone on a Friday morning to make an appointment for the following week. Emergency appointments are normally for 2 or 3 days later. In the meantime the receptionist offers to take your symptoms and give them to the doctor and tells you 'there will be medicine ready for you at such and such pharmacy after 2pm today' ...

Last Thursday I called about my 3 year old dd who had woken up with huge swollen eyes and could hardly open them (turned out to be an allergic reaction to something rather than an infection) and was offered an appointment for the following Wednesday. The receptionist took the symptoms and said that the doctor would prescribe medication based on what I had told her and I could collect it after 2pm.

Is it normal to prescribe medication for a child without actually seeing them??? Or should I complain?

Sorry for spelling / grammar, using iPhone!

My GP where we used to live was impossible to get an appointment. We used to get the "doctor is full" from the receptionist. After a few trips to A&E we soon twigged that taking a screaming and obviously sick child to the GP surgery and standing in front of the receptionist saying "she needs to see a doctor now" magicked up an appointment that wasn't available by phone.

I can't believe they'd prescribe things for a child without seeing them

This sounds really wrong. At our GP surgery- and at all the others I've been at through the years- we always get emergency apts on the day, and I've never ever been asked to wait for an apt for my DS. I would make a formal complaint & then change GPs asap if I were you.

Good grief.

I was involved in some research looking at urgent care in general practice and the researchers did find some appalling surgeries. Heard about one where everyone had to stand in a queue outside for opening at 8.30 - if you weren't in the queue you didn't get seen.

But this is even more bizarre. Very dangerous. I would contact the GMC - seriously. (Or, if you don't want to go to the GMC, the practice manager or the local PCT. Problem there is the PCTs are being disbanded and local GPs taking on the job, so PCT managers won't want to fall out with GPs.)

I'm really shocked at this, our GP will always see children on emergencies and you can always see someone within 24 hours if you're willing to use the dr/nurse clinic - and to prescribe on the basis of a hearsay report of a non-doctor?? one would hope this would be illegal somehow, definitely dreadful practice!! I would absolutely complain and switch practices.

elvislives - That's brilliant!

This doesn't sound like good practice. I'd change surgeries.

Then again, pop over to the other thread on this list and to general health. There are plenty of people willing to take advice from unqualified MNetters.

Change GP'S AND complain about them!

No doctor should be dishing out meds without either seeing the patient first or at least speaking to the patient (or the patients mother in this case) themselves! How on earth can you make a diagnosis over the phone? And what if the receptionist missed some vital information out and got it totally wrong?

That would totally disgust me if I was treated like that!

i have to say, i find the medical system in the uk a bit odd....when my ds2 was about 8 weeks old i developed a severere sciatia / back problem. i could not wipe my own ass yet alone get out of bed. phoned the gp (undiagnosed at that point - about a week larer) and asked if i could have a house visit. at this poinnt all i knew was that i was in pain and could not walk. No one could come from the surgery, i was expected to make an appointment and come in. yet it took me 20 mins to walk to the ensuite let alone try to get into a car. Not a single solitary sole from the gp saw me at all over the next few months yet i was prescribed all sorts over th phone - to begin with only coedine but in the end morpphine patches & gappabatin (spelling??), sorry to hijack but i seriously cannot believe that in this country GPS prescribe over the phone, let along receptionists!! this is CRAZY, if it came to my DC I would be shouting from the rooftops.[though strangely did not shout given it was me ] anyhow, complain - that is absolutly riduculous...oh, am from Oz BTW

OP - I am a v senior manager in NHS who spends alot of time on complaints etc.

This is not acceptable treatment you shoud complain and if not satisfied by practices repsonse then escalalte to PCT

YANBU- shocking, dangerous and lazy. Don't let them get away with it. Anyway what if you don't want to tell the receptionist about your medical problem? You're not obliged to and they're not medically trained.

At our GP practice a child will get an emergency appointment on the same day.

Over the phone prescribing is dangerous and needs reporting.
Also, information being relayed to a GP by a receptionist and medication being prepared on this basis is just asking for mistakes to be made. It needs rectifying before this happens.

Change your GP and for the sake of the other patients, please complain.

That is very shocking!

At our surgery, you ring up on the day at 8am to get an appointment for that day. There are also some pre-bookable slots which you can book in advance. So emergency cases will always be seen.

I'd definitely complain in your position. It's ludicrous to diagnose based on the receptionist's interpretation of symptoms.

That's terrible, receptionists aren't qualified and could easily miss something by not reporting a symptom they don't think is relevant or not asking the right questions.

A friend of mine has a GP where they have to tell the receptionist their symptoms so they can decide how urgent it is. I don't think they should insist that you share confidential information like that over the phone with a receptionist.

My GPs surgery asks if it is an emergency or can wait, and if the nurse practitioner could deal with it, and they take your word for it.

Hi. I'm a GP. It is quite common for GPs to prescribe without necessarily seeing a patient in certain circumstances, but I know of no GP who would do this without having a telephone consultation themselves with the patient/ parent first. It is not acceptable to try to do this via receptionist, and any error arising from this would be indefensible.

In the situation you mentioned, many children would not need a face-to-face consultation, and could be treated following a phone consultation with a GP, if the GP felt this was appropriate and if the parent was happy with this management. But services such as advice from pharmacists are also very useful resources, and often avoid any need for a Drs appointment. Many people would have an antihistamine at home and would appropriately treat the child first before seeking advice.

Certainly to be doing all of this through a receptionist is unsafe and unworkable. You should write a letter to the practice manager with your concerns and expect a proper response (it should be discussed at a practice meeting with Drs). Writing to your MP, as someone has suggested, is completely inappropriate at this stage! I'd also speak with your GP direct before changing GP surgeries (with all the hassle over moving notes etc - and in many areas practices will not take on new patients who already have a local GP); based on what you have said you don't know that the GPs sanction these actions by their receptionists - do they even know that this is happening?

Our GP has a triage system, where he phones you and tells you whether or not you need a today appointment or not, he's often prescribed down the telephone. I can nearly always get an appointment the day I call or at the latest the following day.

They even do Saturday morning appointments!

I have always been able to see a GP same day if it is for my DD. I also know of at least two occasions where someone has turned up at the surgery with a DC and been seen straight away- once when the DC had poured hot tea over themselves and once with a knock to the head. The surgery will always find some way of doing it if it is urgent, although they may be seen by a nurse to start with.

Don't think I have needed any emergency appointments for myself, but non-emergnecy appointments only take 2-3 days.

On the other hand, our appointments do often run very late, but I would rather that than think that serious cases are not being seen.

No, this is unnacceptable and you should complain or change GPs.

I bloody hope this isn't normal! What kind of doctor prescribes medicine for any patient, especially children, without even setting eyes on them????? I'd complain alright and change GPs.

I can always get an emergency appointment for my DD (3) the same day, usually within a couple of hours. When she was about 6 weeks old and had chronic diorrhea (can never spell that!) The resceptionist said if the doctor hadn't got back to be within about 45 minutes to go to A+E. He phoned me within 20 minutes. Will never moan about my GP ever again!

I'd be moving surgeries like a shot if I were you - the gp above who mentioned 'hassle over moving notes' must be talking about hassle for the surgery, as I've moved a number of times over the years and it's always been entirely straightforward, just a matter of filling out a few forms. If the receptionists are rubbish then so is the surgery, since inevitably they are the primary gatekeepers. The doctors clearly sanction the system in any case as they must know they have prescribed without seeing or speaking to the patient!

Our surgery holds back 70% of appointments to be booked on the day; the rest you can book in advance. When my daughter has been very ill I've been called back by a doctor within 5 minutes, and either told to come in immediately or in one case had a doc at our door with a nebuliser within 10 minutes! The system works brilliantly; the receptionists are friendly and the docs competent. If they can manage a decent appointments system it's beyond me why other practices manage to fail so spectacularly at it.

Vote with your feet if you possibly can. My surgery is a bus ride away but I put up with the inconvenience as a decent surgery might well save your life. I used to be registered at the surgery down my road and they refused me a same day appointment. By that evening I was in hospital having emergency surgery and would have died if I'd let the fool of a receptionist book me an 'urgent' appointment in 3 days time. Makes me so furious that surgeries can get away with this kind of thing.

I am totally

You must, must complain. To GPs and to PCT. And change doctors.

Our GP's surgery is fantastic in most regards - you can almost always get an appointment on the day. Even if I call later on, the duty doctor will see my DS that day if there's any concern (eg high temp). It's harder to get an appointment in advance which is annoying if you work full time though.

Your surgery, is totally, totally, not normal. Possibly not legal. Shocking.

libelulle No there is no hassle whatsoever to practices of moving notes; the paper record goes to the health authority and then on to the next GP. This can take 1-2 months. The potential problem can arise for the moving patient especially if their medical records are complex; you are in the situation of consulting with a new GP who initally has NONE of your past records. This can be very difficult, especially if you are in the middle of hospital investigations etc.

This is why a decision to change GPs is not something to take lightly; there are considerable advantages to seeing a Dr who knows you well and over a long period. OF COURSE, if you feel the relationship has broken down so severely then you have every right to move; this is as it should be, but it is not always as straightforward as it may seem.

Vote with your feet, I did.
My original surgery used to have emergency appointments that day, you rang at 8 am and got a morning appointment, or you rang at 12 and got an afternoon one. Then it started that you had to speak to the triage nurse and she would decide if you need to see the doctor that day. Then after a couple of months of that, you had to leave your name and number for the triage nurse to call you back. Then, the final stage of insanity was that you had to ring at 8 for an appointment to see the triage nurse, you came in for that time, and then if she decided that you needed to see the doctor, she would make you another appointment later that day to see them. So a sick person had to trail to the surgery twice in one day just to get to see a bloody doctor. After hearing that I rang the reception told them they were a waste of space and registered at a different surgery.
Now despite my new GP having a larger caseload and only one more (part time) GP, I can ring the surgery and almost without fail get to see a doctor that same day. Its ace and I wish I had moved years before I actually did.