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?

I can see why this is up for discussion tbh. I work for the NHS, and there are definitely regulars who block appointments for people who do need them and take up a hell of a lot of GP time. MIL is one of those...she's there on a weekly basis, demanding antibiotics for all sorts of things and popping painkillers like sweeties. It got so bad that the GP told her that he would not see her again unless she was actually ill. She doesn't have any form of mental illness and she isn't lonely btw, she's just obsessed with her health.

Good idea. Labour caused a lot of these primary health contact problems. A nominal charge to see the GP isn't such a bad idea. I'd like to be able to opt out of the NHS though and spend the money on private health insurance.

I find this terrifying personally. People will die. Many cancers start off with vague nagging symptoms and people just wont go until its too late.

Oh agree, RP: properly funding the NHS (and joined up social care) is by far my top preference for national healthcare.

It's massively better value for money than any other system I've seen. Pushing procurement and acounting down to the individual patient loses all economies of scale and purchasing power.

It's a profit-making healthcare company's wetdream. I know a software company which is planning massive growth from healthcare, as it's expecting there to be so many new admin systems needed by so many new private players feeding off the NHS. It's NHS money which will ultimately be going into the software company's pockets, of course.

RevoltingPeasant it's quite ironic that a lot of R&D is paid for by tax payers, either directly, through donations, through tax avoidance and by giving incentives to pharma companies, we can keep people alive longer but treatment will be rationed. The whole thing is riddled with contradictions.

If Pharma companies make billions out of developing drugs, are subsidised in various underhand and explicit ways by our money so they can profit, what sense is there in limiting access to what they sell.

What do we do, allow people over a certain age to die from perfectly treatable conditions as well as neglect in social care.

Thing is, SirChenjin, how far are we prepared to go to stop your MIL turning up at the GP? And why?

Yes, people who need appointments are having to wait longer for them because of your MIL.

But under a rationing system, those same people who need appointments might not get them at all, because they've used up "their ration".

So a GP refusing to see a single known patient looks like a better solution than rationing everyone.

Mini tell me about it. I work for a university and you know what is being cut? Biosciences, in several places I know. That research is essentially tax payer funded R&D. :(

People with treatable conditions already are being allowed to die. I know one and I will not give any details but her treatment has just made me sick, absolutely, genuinely nauseous. What they are doing to her is hideous and immoral and entirely dirven by costs.

infamouspoo that's certainly one of the arguments put forward against the Health bill (before it was passed) Gps have a terrible track record for referral and cancer survival rates are the lowest in Europe. It is believed that if GPs referred sooner we could improve survival rates. So not only are GPs in charge of commissioning and the money but patients will likely not even get to see their GP.

I used to work for SS and the number of elderly people that spoke about life as a child before the NHS, how they lost siblings to treatable conditions, how their parents couldn't afford to call a doctor. And we, a civilised first world country want a return to this.

Crumbledwalnuts, your "nominal charge" is someone else's 20% of their weekly budget.

Worse, there's a correlation between poor health and low income. And the line isn't drawn at the point where people become eligible for DLA (or the more restrictive line for the new PIP).

The money for R&D is going by the way of the private multi nationals. Of course a percentage of any money coming their way is always siphoned off the shareholders. What use is it having private companies develop drugs using our money if we then can't afford access to these drugs/treatments. Its bonkers.

From my experience last night 111 is already a barrier against the out of hours doc, the ridiculous advice I was given veered from perhaps you should go to a and e to would you like to talk to a nurse!

For an eye incident that just needed a quick all clear by an out of hours doc.

For lots of us - docs are already increasingly in accessible, we need more access, more help from docs not less, same with the legal aid being cut.

InfamousPoo totally agree with you about cancers, so many ads, go and get probs checked but when you get to the docs, what do they do? Its rushed, frantic, some docs are plain rude and horrid.....and some just want to bat you away and get you out the office.

Like mummymeister I know a few gps and they all say that a large portion of their time is taken by time wasters.

I agree something needs to be done.

How about, if you have a valid reason to go, like caja, you can go as often as you need. But, if you go for nothing, or for something that can be bought otc, then you only get 3 chances, or something, per year?

The GP sitting next to me thinks it a bad idea ... because it won't educate people about appropriate use of services (which is what we SHOULD be putting money into) and would result in those that were most in need losing out to the largest extent. He also thinks that some people would seek to 'meet the target' by attending exactly 20 times per year etc. when they would not have done so otherwise!

Okay, let's agree limits for GP visits - if GPs agree to actually refer people when necessary and not blow people off with 'try taking a paracetamol'.

My long-term kidney problem was misdiagnosed as 'just one of those things', IBS, gallbladder problems, and ectopic pregnancy before being correctly identified. That took a number of GP visits, but my GP blatantly thought I was having a pointless whinge about these occasional pains in my side.

DH's prostatitis remained formally undiagnosed for about 6 years because the GP kept saying 'Well, it sounds like p'tis and there's nothing we can do for that, want some antibiotics?' Eventually I made him go every single time he had an attack. He went 4 times between February and July last year and they finally got the message and referred him to an andrologist - who did the first physical examination anybody had ever bothered to do in 6 years.

So yeah, 3 chances a year when GPs actually guarantee to refer properly. I know a GP socially who is proud of his low referral rates, as higher ones cost his practice.

I'm astonished anyone thinks this is a good idea. I'm guessing those who do have plenty of money or are always well. Perhaps talking to people who lived pre-NHS would be a good idea?

But then some of those time wasters may have something wrong with them that isn't being diagnosed. I know plenty of people who have spent months shuffling back and forth to eventually be diagnosed. I have spent 10 years btw doctor and dentist for pain in the roof of my mouth

GP "go see the dentist
Dentist "its not your teeth, go see GP"

and so it goes on for ten years until finally for some inexplicable reason both GP and dentist listen to me "its your sinuses" great.......that's why I keep telling you its linked to my nose and my allergies. Heaven only knows how many "wasted" visits I have made for something so simple.

Now if I had been paying, would I have got a quicker diagnosis? no, of course not, I would just have been either poorer or have given up.

Just as many people will give up even if they are very seriously unwell.

But, if you go for nothing, or for something that can be bought otc, then you only get 3 chances, or something, per year?

I agree there are time wasters. But what if the 4th time it was for actually something important?

I'm astonished anyone thinks this is a good idea.

Works fine in lots of countries. I think only Spain has a health service like ours.

I see a GP two weekly for mental health problems, serious ones. Without that I would go days without talking to anyone. I know that I cant cope without it, I have discussed it with my surgery and they have zero problem monitoring me fortnightly. At my worst I've had contact with GP daily, their decision and not mine.

I live on around 30 a week - there's no way I can afford to pay to see my GP, if it cost I honestly think I'd just try to force myself into coping alone as paying wouldn't be an option.

Mini - exactly - some people are genuine time-wasters and some just can't their problem diagnosed.

Like my poor next door neighbour who eventually had his spinal tumour diagnosed - too late. He had been on numerous visits with various odd symptoms which kept changing. It is people like that who would be penalised in practice.

FrozenNorthPole thank you that's interesting. Some people probably would just see it as their entitlement.

Ms Miniver, you could charge for A and E as well.

This is the case already in many European countries. I(personally) have been impressed by the Belgian system of no queuing for a for a gp appointment and immediate referrals. But I have not worked out what happens if you can't pay the 23 euros for the doctor and don have hospitalisation insurance. . There needs to be some middle ground.

poor next door neighbour

If this latest gift to the private sector should come to pass, I hate to think what will happen to ordinary working people, people on very low incomes or even the misers who dislike spending their money and would rather trudge on. I wouldn't wish to see people suffering from treatable conditions or dead for want of money.

And where will this leave children? are they too going to be given a limit?

I don't think the NHS can continue the way it is providing all the services it does. So some savings have to be made. There are just too many demands made on it for the contributions people pay.