To think my GP practice should take blood samples.

[RaisingthedeadArizona]

Was informed today that patients (apart from the elderly and chronically sick) are now to get blood taken at walk-in clinics at either of the two main city hospitals.

Both hospitals involve £3.90 bus fares to get to and as the journey is 35 mins each way, and the hospitals are both flipping massive, I suspect the whole exercise will take up to half a day.

My GP's practice is 2 mins away from home.

I'm not forever having blood tests and taking up loads of nurse appointments. Is it unreasonable to ask that I have this done at the doctors?

No!

If you're always having blood tests and nurses appointments, surely you count as 'chronically sick'?

I live in Scotland so am not subjected to the stupid things that are happening to general practice in England and Wales. Sadly the government have forced this upon us through he commissioning services they have developed and the blood taking has been outsourced to another agency.
Get onto your MP and tell him/her to stop Jeremy Hunt destroying general practice as we know it.
Chronically sick will be certain illnesses eg diabetes

It's probably to do with budget cuts and/or a change of who owns the phlebotomy (sp?) contract.

They could take your blood at the surgery, but it then has to be transported to the labs (in the hospital) to actually be tested. My guess is that service is expensive so they've chosen to keep it to a minimum and only have pick-ups a couple of times a week so reserve that for the patients who need it the most and so they don't have lulls where their paying for a couple of samples to be picked up at a large cost.

AYBU? Umm I'm not sure to be honest. It's inconvenient, but it's available and like you say not a regular thing so I think I'd be inclined to get on with it for the benefit of my own health.

Right, letter to MP then. OK I'm able to take the time to head out to the city hospitals but I could well do without the £3.90 bus fares as am on a ridiculously small income - but what about the people who are working? Are they expected to take time off to do this?

No YANBU - and it doesn't need to be a GP or nurse, they could have a phlebotomist (some who is trained soley to take blood). I thought the whole point of having phlebotomy clinics in other places was for convenience for those people who need routine blood tests and find it easier to get to a clinic rather than the GP surgery; not replace you going to the GP surgery if you want to.

I've never had blood test at GPs. Ever.

Always have to go to the walk-in phlebotomy clinics at nearby hospitals.

Or at least for as long as I can remember - 20yrs plus.

Am in London BTW.

I would much rather have a phlebotomist take my bloods than a midwife.

Yanbu. Blood tests are pretty routine and shouldn't need a half day out of work especially when people are struggling to hold on to jobs.

It's probably not about the clinical staffing but transport costs. You don't just whack it in a jiffy bag and dump it in your boot. It's a treated as a biohazard and they should be carrying specific equipment in case anything got broken/spilled etc. among (I would guess) a whole other load of rules.

YANBU. Never heard of this before.

I would say on the GP's behalf (and having been trained to inject into veins as part of my job) it can seriously mess with the time of appointments if you have someone (particularly the elderly or people who have to frequently have blood tests) who has hard to get to veins. I hate waiting for our GP even though I know she is very conscientious and this is why her appointments run over. If she was trying to take blood samples as well we would all be waiting hours. A well trained phlebotomist is much more likely to get the vein first time because they do it day in day out. It's a matter of using the valuable GP time for the best use and then having cheaper, probably faster, phlebotomists for the specific job.

Like Pooka when I lived in London we never ever had blood taken at GP, had to have it done at hospital. If you didn't drive it was 2 bus rides away. Mad, really.

Raising v inconvenient for patients at your surgery when used to having it done at the practice. Am no longer in London and would feel equally hard done by if our surgery said they would no longer do this. Good though that elderly and chronically sick can continue having it done at practice.

Lost - our GPs will do blood tests for important things at the appointment. For more routine stuff, we have a nurse who takes blood - you just book an appointment with her.

I have to go to the hospital for a bloody blood test.

Gone are the days where the nurses do them it seems.

I would love to train as a phlebotomist.

I appreciate that times are hard and everyone's budget is being pared back to the bone so I suppose I shall just get on with it this time. But will write to MP as suggested because times are hard for us all and this seems a bit much. It's good to get at least a few reasons why they are perhaps doing it though - ie the transport costs.

yanbu
at least my gp practice has a phlebotomist who comes once a week and takes all the bloods.
good job, as I need monthly tests atm...

My doctor still offers it, or rather, you pop in and see a nurse on the way to work. Can't imagine our busy hospital appreciating a lot of not very ill people turning up for this.

I'd point out to your MP that the inconvenience will result in people ending up with really expensive ailments because early warning signs will be missed when they won't/can't get a blood test - it's a false economy.

I rather suspiciously think a lot of politicians would be pleased to hear money was being saved by making something so simple difficult to access and therefore reducing costs.

Iamsparkly that's a good point. Will mention that in my letter.

It wasn't the GP that was doing the bloods at our practice - you just made an appointment with the nurse and she did it (and was absolutely amazing at doing it).

I can see the point that it could be a time-consuming thing for a GP/practice nurse to have to do if people have hard to tap veins though. They have clinics for so many other things such as stopping smoking, weight loss etc, and probably they get incentives to do those whereas blood tests aren't anything they can get rewarded for doing?

YANBU. I can imagine a lot of people not bothering to get their bloods done if they have to go to a lot of hassle to get them taken. It can't be that expensive to employ a phlebotomist a couple of mornings at the surgery or to have the practice nurse do them. I sometimes take bloods (Im a GP) if its a child with tricky veins or if the nurse is booked up and the patient is in a rush eg to get back to work, but I can't imagine having to do all the bloods either - we only get 10 minutes with the patient which already has to include the patient history, examination, dressing/undressing for examination, discussing treatment, recording of notes and referral making etc etc!!

Your GP will get financial incentives for referring patients with high but not dangerous - therefore indicating a path of prevention - results for things like blood sugars and cholesterol to prevention education. I suppose enough people will get a blood test from the walk-in to still make blood collection something that their surgery doesn't consider necessary.

Presuming you've one of those form things you take to the walk-in you could probably google anything you don't recognise to see what your GP is checking.