to think that within a few years we will be paying to visit the GP,Conservatives consider limit on GP visits

[MiniTheMinx]

The Conservatives have considered limiting the number of times patients can visit their family doctor in a year, it has emerged.

"Labour health spokesman Jamie Reed told the Independent on Sunday: "This paper, hidden away on their website, reveals the Tories' true agenda for the NHS. After throwing the NHS open to ever more privatisation with a wasteful and damaging reorganisation, it seems the Tories want to go even further.
"It's shocking that they are considering limiting the number of times patients can see their GP - changing the fundamental principle in the NHS constitution that access to the NHS is based on clinical need.
"The Tories have already wasted £3bn on a top-down reorganisation of the NHS and overseen a crisis in A&E - now they are consulting their members on opening up the NHS to even more competition, and making it harder for patients to see GPs in the evenings and at weekends."

A Conservative Party spokesman said: "This was simply a topic to provoke discussion and isn't Conservative Party policy."

Yet.

We all know where we are headed with this don't we? or am I being an unreasonable old cynic?

and lazeyjaney - the pharmacist can't treat everything - my asthma, my pcos, my knee joint issue and my hernia are definitely out of the pharmacist's remit.

The letter I got for my ante-natal consultant appointment incuded a note saying that they text / call patients with a reminder the day before the appointment as part of a scheme to reduce missed appointments. That sounded like a good idea - except that I didn't get any reminder. Although I remembered about the appointment without one.

(And then I was 15 mins late anyway because there was an hour long queue to get into the hospital car park that I hadn't anticipated. A note about what times are likely to be extra busy times in the visitor car park would have been helpful)

Shadow storm - did you give any feed back about appointment letters explaining about car park queues and allowing time for them as to not be late for appointments?

No - at the time I was too busy freaking out and apologising about being late to think of anything as sensible as that.

Sending them some feedback suggesting that they warn patients about the car park queues might be a good idea though. Can you still give feedback if it's about an experience a few weeks ago?

Feedback now should be fine. It still applies. My dentist insists that appointments have to be cancelled 24hrs before and they count anything less as a no show. Which is really helpful when you wake up with a vomitting bug on the morning of your appointment. As my appointment was at 9am and they don't start answering the phone until then its a bit difficult to cancel the appointment before it starts.

Exactly Clay Shit happens (pardon the pun) but some people have trouble accepting that.

Whole nonsense about DNAs starts from the basis of patients being an inconvenience and infantilises them.

Our surgery did a report on why patients visited A and E instead of the GP, and why they left without being seen, implication being we are idiots. I did that recently - DC1 hurtled off his scooter and banged his head, a nurse checked him over and gave concussion advice, after waiting hours to see a consultant to say the sane thing as a nurse we politely made our excuses and left (I had to collect his brothers and the nurse admitted the consultant would only say what she had just said, consultant view was only required to rubber stamp the proceedings).

We are not all feckless resource wasters.

To all the hand wringers - you just can't continue to have a system that has somewhere between 30 and 40% of it's limited capacity tied up in no shows and time wasters. The costs are just too high in a cash strapped economy.

Charging occurs in just about every other 1st world country, and they all get by quite nicely. And I'm sure the UK could learn lessons about how to deal with genuine chronic illness, we won't have been the first country to tackle this.

^^
Should read 20 - 30%

I think you mean "20% by lazy's own unevidenced estimate above", lazy.

And your argument appears to consist of repeating "they all get by quite nicely" in the face of what does in fact happen in the US.

My estimates are perfectly reasonable based on publicly available data, other posters here have shown it can be even worse

The US is one example of many countries that charge, others do it far better, and have dealt with all the issues brought up here, as most have better outcomes than we do - in fact we are almost unique in not charging.

In fact, I don't understand your argument at all.

You claim to be concerned about expenditure. But when it's pointed out that prevention and early detection SAVE money, and that the NHS is one of the best-value (outcomes for £££ spent) health services in the world, you glaze, stare into the distance and start name-calling.

So it doesn't seem that expenditure really is your main concern.

I don't see why prevention requires structural wastage of doctors appointment capacity to work properly. It's done perfectly well in countries that do charge, which proves my point.

And the assertion about the NHS efficiency is a comfortable mantra trotted out in the UK for local consumption, it just doesn't bear up to any serious scrutiny.

Again, nearly every 1st world other country restricts access and manages to have better health outcomes than the UK, so they are doing something better - and part of that is they don't waste a significant % of their most skilled medical resources - their doctors - time.

You said yourself that people will got to a pharmacist instead of a doctor if charging is brought in.

As for the rest of your assertions, would you care to substantiate those?

And I don't mean finding one narrow outcome (small cell lung cancer survival at 10 yrs, or whatever) where the UK lags a couple of countries - there will always be some variation.

You've made the assertion that "nearly every 1st world country... manages to have better health outcomes than the UK". That's a pretty high bar. What are you using as your measures?

In fact, I've tried to do the work for you and find evidence, but all I've come up with is a consumer survey from 2007, where the NHS scored poorly because of waiting times and cancer survival (the latter of which was already known about and being dealt with in 2007).

If waiting times are your bugbear, it's true that the better off will experience lower waiting times at GPs if the poor are all at the pharmacy instead. But effective waiting times (time till seen by GP) for the poor will soar, and population-wide survival rates will drop.

You can "improve" the NHS for a narrow number of people by excluding others using cost as a gateway. But I'm not sure I want to do that.

The other countries don't demand a doctor's letter every time your 5yo is off with an ear infection. They don't threaten to take your parents to court if you manage to be off for more than 10 days in one term due to chickenpox. They don't certify you as fit for work if you have terminal cancer, necessitating endless letters from the doctor to explain that actually you can't be in at work this week.

And comparing to countries such as Sweden or Norway is pointless: those countries have far smaller income gaps, so there will be fewer people who cannot pay. Of course it won't be creating a medical underclass in a country where everybody can afford to pay. That's not to say it won't in a different kind of country.

The problem with this government is that the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. The measures they introduce with the right hand are exactly the ones that will incapacitate the measures they introduce with the left hand.

Cory, here in Belgium EVERY absence of more than one day needs a doctor's certificate - for school and work.

judging by many on this thread the Tories have won. Goodbye NHS. I'm hoping those of you thinking of others as wasters (and you'll be the same people using the wotds'feckless scroungers' on other threads) are one day stood in the pissing rain outside a doctors surgery too poor to go in. With a chronically sick child.
Thant was my granny in 1927 with my dad. He was 8 years old and coughing blood and they couldnt afford a doctors fee.Screw you to everyone who wants to go back to that.

oh, and talking of wasters. This morning we got a taxi with the disabled son to the hosptal for his appointment. £20 we can ill afford but the bus is not accessible. the fucking consultant didnt show and the clinic was cancelled. No phone call, no letter. Nothing. So another £20 taxi back. £40 gone out of our NMW income. Fucking bastard wankers. Where's the fucking consultant? And we werent the only ones. His entire clinic of patients were there plus support staff etc.

Even for one day off work in France I need a sick note.

I complained about it once (I get severe migraines - I have treatment but it doesn't always work) but was told it was that or take a days holiday.

Now I just get an appointment with my GP, preferably on the day I'm off work, but have done it the next day if he couldn't see me. I just walk in, say I need a sick note cos of migraine (he knows me well), he writes it. Asks if I need a prescription (no, cos have one thats valid 6 months or so), I pay 23 euros and leave.

I then get 21 euros back a couple of weeks later.

I hate the idea of people not going to the Dr when they need to because of money. I think it's disgraceful.

LazyJaney You are wrong that the US "do it better". I have heard from many people in the US on a forum for my autoimmune condition. Do you know how the lower income manage? They bankrupt themselves, get into debt or just suffer. There was a study conducted and their overall outcomes are far worse.

Good health is not a given. God forbid you should wake up and one day and find out that life as you know it will never be the same again. Your nickname suits you, you are too lazy to consider how long-term and chronic conditions truly affect people. A little empathy goes a long way.

Thats awful infamous

An introduction of a cap on visits or a charge would only be an affront to the vulnerable and very vulnerable. It would be an absolute disgrace in this country. Under the current financial climate it would be criminal akin to genocide (of the poor and ill).
Kitchen soups have opened everywhere and are unable to cope with the demand...

To the people who would be willing to pay to see a GP: Why are you not already doing so by going to a private GP? It would shorten your waiting time and that of NHS patients.

But in France you get most of the money back from doctor's visits so you are not in effect paying. I was thinking of countries where you actually without a refund, like Sweden for instance.

My DH pays to see a GP privately - about once every five years.

The NHS needs to change. I have an underlying chronic medical condition and have to take one cheap tablet with a long shelf life every day. The last gov introduced 28 day prescribing. That meant the gp's time was wasted, the receptionist's time was wasted, the pharmacist's time was wasted and most of all my time was wasted. As the surgery was incapable of sending a repeat prescription to the right chemist or even just getting it ready within the 48 hour sla - eventually I just made an apt to see the GP to get it written and put in my hand. Then the GP got arsy.

I need one annual prescription; one annual blood test. Now I get the former again but the latter is provided by another surgery but I can't access it during term time between 9 and 10 and they don't make appointments.

Fortunately with the 28 day prescribing I have a medical exemptio certificate and didn't have to pay. And that is another tale - I can afford to pay for a prescription and I should but not the flat prescription fee 12 times a year for a drug that costs about three pounds for a years supply. Absolutely bonkers.