To wonder how many times GPs get it wrong, and risk someones life? for the sake of funds??

[lisad123]

Had a call from friend earlier today to say another friend of ours has a tumor on her spine. GP has fobbed her off for ages :(
Same happened with dh, and my gp misdiagonised gallstones and sadly i ended up very unwell.
DD2 we were told had a virus but instead she had pnemonia, and so spent a week in hospital.

Cancer seems to be the thing they miss most often, especially if you dont fit target age ect.
I always feel GPs dont refer or do tests because of funding and people are dying, getting very unwell because of it.

Took dd to gp 5 times, told she has a urine infection 5 times, took her to nhs drop in I was told again urine infection, next day she collasped and was rushed to hospital, her kidneys were not working she was peeing blood and passing blood(3 gps told me this was normal) she was kept in for 4 months had a year off school and had a blood transfusion, now goes to hospital every month for tests and early diagnosis would of stopped all of this. I would not see any of the doctors at my surgery again and have left them.

i love the NHS, its not perfect, but neither are the patients.....

I think it's wrong if, because it's free, there's no expectation of reasonable minimum standards for a service.

And also, maybe it needs to be limited; if some patients really are making excessive demands on the NHS, which seems to be a big part of the problem, from this thread at least.

It's NOT free - for most of us, anyway. It's just you pay via your taxes rather than at the point of delivery.

My gp surgery (all of the gp's) misdiagnosed my dd's brain haemorrhage when she was 9 months old. By the time I got her to hospital she was in a coma like state and not expected to last the night.
I'd been fobbed off with it's a tummy bug, an ear infection, a virus and a UTI.
All this despite us taking her to them repeatedly over her 9 months questioning the size of her head (when admitted to hospital her head was just 2cmssmaller than mine)and her repeated bouts of throwing up.
And when I forced an investigation into what went wrong my dd's gp and health visitor notes were changed - you could clearly see the tippexed and photocopied areas. But I also knew they were lies because it wasn't what happened but the authorities had to take their word over mine.
They also misdiagnosed my pneumonia which was eventually diagnosed when I collapsed on holiday in the USA. I was told it was an asthma cough for 3 months.
I have no trust in gp's now.

Hidden I'm sorry you have had such bad experiences but all GPs are not morons that just isn't possible there are too many for them all to be the same. Some patients will be morons but it would be unreasonable for a GP to say all their patients were.

The art of full body exam has not been lost everywhere. My GP can still do one and he is not an old timer. He is younger than me.

In defence if GPs regarding pneumonia in some cases the GP could have been right in diagnosing a virus. Pneumonia can develop as a secondary infection and may not have been present at the original examination. Before I am flamed I said some not all cases.

I think some of the young GPs are better because they realise that nowadays they are not up there on a pedestal anymore (apart from my mother of course).

They are generalists however and I do wish they would sometimes admit they don't know everything - and do some research perhaps. It's very easy nowadays!

If a GP registrar hadn't been so thorough (in a less than 10 min slot) my DHs impending renal failure would have been missed. But she put pieces of a pattern together, investigated & referred appropriately and as a result his renal function is managed and stable. If she hadn't been so good he might be on a transplant list by now. And yes, I did write in a letter of thanks.

If my mother's GP had been half as good, my mum might still be alive. I'll obviously never know.

My point is, there are both the truly excellent and the cringingly terrible - as in any profession. And, as with anything where there are extremes, the vast majority bimble along in between the two. You are hugely fortunate to have medical care free at the point of use (I pay equivalent in tax here and I still have to pay to visit a GP) and the vast majority of the "middle ground" are highly trained and extremely competent.

Oh and hidden - there was a time (20+ years ago) when giving carbon dioxide instead of oxygen was a routine anaesthetic technique to increase CO2 levels to stimulate breathing. CO2 cylinders haven't been on machines for decades though so I imagine the incident to which you referred happened some time ago. That's a long time to be carrying around that level of venom - maybe you should get yourself referred for counselling.

(nice to see that the attempt to bring a "no blame" culture into the NHS has so many obvious supporters on this thread )

My surgery is 4 miles away. A couple of doctors have been there since I was a small child.

My doctor, well he is the most sought after doctor around here. He's fabulous. He was a support through a family bereavement, coming to the house on a few occasions to check how we were. He always makes however much time is needed to listen to patients, he's friendly and genuinely cares about his patients.

He tells us 'your time with me is your time, take as long as you need. Yes, appointment times are often an hour late. He's so good at what he does that no-one cares. You expect to be late and take a good book. The appointments are never rushed, always relaxed.

What I was annoyed with recently was a nurse. I wanted a nurse to dress my daughters weeping arms from bad eczema. She said she couldn't because it was chronic eczema and called a doctor to do it. Waste of a doctors time imo.

There are some wonderful GPs out there who are kind, thoughtful, prepared to listen to you and generous with their time. For those people I am eternally grateful and try not tar them all with the same brush. However, it is very hard to forgive the arrogant attitude of the GP who persistently told my partner that the pain in his chest was an ulcer. It wasn't. It was oesophageal cancer and by the time he had convinced her that he needed a referral, based on his appalling family history of GI cancers, it was too late to do anything about it. And of the GP who saw my newborn son after three episodes of apnoea and whose response was "What do you expect me to do about it?" - it escapes me as to why she is allowed to treat patients with such disdain and contempt.

I can only say that when you know something is not right, you KNOW and I am probably a GPs worst nightmare now, as I absolutely insist on the help I came for. I will not be fobbed off.

you know the gp I trust is the one that missed my early symptoms and fair play the early signs could been taken for something else .

we wont discuss the other one that missed the critical stage or fact it was chiropractor that sent me to hospital after calling a gp who just gave me stronger painkillers

But when I saw her next she apologised for missing it and gone through the notes to see if she had missed a red flag( her case no was no real red flags at that point i had seen her ) .

But had done her research into the condition and what happened and how best to help me .

The other Gp well he was like i never heard of it and had not even read up about it after the event so guess who i will refuse to see or trust any more

the junior dr at the hospital i can never thank enough he was on the ball and spotted something enough to order a urgent night time mri and to get a consultant down and call a spinal unit for help and advice

I took my DD when she was weeks old to the doctor lots of times with breathing problems and feeding issue. He gave her a few antibiotics and said she was just a stuffy baby. Eventually sire another GP who referred her straight away. She has a cleft in her throat.

The same GP also told me to go home and stop worrying when I again took her with breathing difficulties. The next day she ended up in hospital for over a week.

The hospital has given my DD direct access to the children's ward. So when she is ill I go there bot my GP.

I for one am so glad to be living in a country with free at point of access healthcare.

I have had numerous GPs over my life time (moved a lot from 18 onwards) and I can say hand in heart each one has been an excellent GP, professional and caring.

I almost wept with joy when my CFS was diagnosed after many years of tests to discover what was wrong and the GP that gave me the news was an ME specialist. Ok there's no cure etc but having a name to put to the condition helped. I could have easily been fobbed off with my symptoms but each GP was thorough in their referrals for tests etc.

As a teacher I feel sympathy with GPs as we get a lot of attacking from the public over what they perceive the job to be.

I feel I should qualify my earlier statement - post the initial GP with my PE I saw many doctors and nurses who were all brilliant. All my doctors I see when preggers are amazing.

I've had good and bad gps over the years. Previous practice was one of the worst. DS ended up in hospital as a baby thanks to my gp dismissing my (genuine) concerns. She was patronising and completely disinterested. The surgery we're at now is great. It may be big but the staff are caring and really look after patients.

So I would say like any profession there are good, bad, lacklustre and downright incompetent gps.unfortunately whenthey make a mistake the consequences can be fatal. I think far too often patients are not listened to; as my own fabulous and much- missed gp said "drs are human, not gods, we just happen to be good at reading and remembering lots of information. Never let them patronise you - you know your body and your child better than we do."

My mum's GP told her that her symptoms were "definitely nothing sinister". A few weeks later she was having emergency surgery for advanced bowel cancer. She was a typical age to present with this disease. My GP had no explanation for my symptoms (four years after mum's) but just in case, she referred me to a consultant who also thought it was probably nothing serious, though how he could tell just from lightly pressing my abdomen is beyond me. Fortunately he did refer me for a colonoscopy, which showed a tumour. Grade 3 bowel cancer. One tiny step away from being incurable. GP phoned me later to say how "shocked" she and the consultant were by the findings - even though I had described well known symptoms of bowel cancer. I read subsequently that bowel cancer patients under the age of fifty are almost never diagnosed at an early stage (because they're not investigated for it as only 15% of cases are in people under the age of fifty.) It's so frustrating. I'm sure they could test and treat dozens and dozens of people for the same cost as treating one patient at a later stage.

AAAh, rant over.

New GPs (ie within the last 7 years) have a much more thorough training scheme than in days of old. New training means thatbit is mandatory for them to pass the RCGP post-graduate exams; the old scheme pretty much allowed you to mark time for 3 years.

I'd just like to say I love my gp. He came out to my house within 1.5hrs of dp phoning him to check up on me and give me an injection because I was too ill to get to the surgery. He did this a few years ago for my son too. I wait 2 weeks for routine appointments without complaint because I know if I needed to push it he'd find a way to fit me in.

He is also fantastic with my grandparents and the only time I have complaints about gps are those I see when he is on holiday.

Ah, can someone on this thread explain something that puzzles me?

Why are GPs working 13 hour days?

I understand that hospitals have shift patterns which compel long hours, and specialist positions so a particular post-holder gets called at all hours.

But neither of these are true for GPs. Eg my local practice
a) does no home visits
b) does no out of hours care
c) has the "different doctor every time" thing, so it's not like someone feels they have to be there for "their" patients.

And of course is backed up by a hospital system offering A&E and Minor Injuries, and by NHS Direct, so it's not like being the only doctor in a remote area.

I completely understand not all work is patient contact time ? but if a job is taking 13 hours a day, why is this one person's job and not two? It's not even a minimum-wage job, where someone needs the hours to make a living.

I truly don't understand. Is there a shortage of GPs in the UK or something?

There is a shortage of GPs in many areas. My surgery is open 8:30 to 6pm so that accounts for 9.5hrs. Our GPs do do home visits for those who are medically incapable of getting to the surgery. On top of that AFAIK they have a lot of paper work e.g. signing and checking repeat prescriptions, signing and checking referral letters, the same with results coming in, audit trail, CPD. That's just the bit I know about as I'm not a GP myself.

Many of the GPs I know will work in the surgery, it will be their turn to finish early, by that I mean about 16:30/17:00 and they will go straight on and do OOH cover which although not directly managed by the surgery these days it is sometimes the local GPs who staff the OOH clinic. (please note I said often not always).

Meant to add I have received a call from my GP just before 7pm as he had been busy and was still at work. There are 5 GPs at my practice and you generally see whomever is available but tbf my GPs at least do care about their patients.