to think you'll miss your GP when they're gone...

[macdoodle]

I have been roundly criticised on other thread for trying to express this. And whilst I admit that highjacking someone's thread may not have been the best way to do it, the crisis in NHS GP is very real.
I have bee around MN for a very long time now, and sometimes the anti GP sentiment is astounding and utterly depressing.
So read this...he is not a GP (I am), but this article absolutely sums up the current problems and morale in GP at the moment.
I have been a doctor for 20 years and a GP (or in GP training) since 1999 and can honestly say that NHS GP is in very real danger of being gone very soon.
For those who continually slate GP's , please tell me what your better suggestion is, because I trained in a country with no national GP service, and it really isnt better in any way.
www.conservativehome.com/platform/2014/03/from-adrian_hilton-the-looming-manpower-crisis-in-gp-land.html

I won't miss mine. I have had three health issues in the last five years and have had zero help from my GP each time. When I injured my neck he suggested I contact a chiropractor or physiotherapist, and hinted that his friend's wife, a chiropractor, might appreciate my money.

I also have an ongoing problem with an underactive thyroid. I buy my own medication from Mexico and Thailand because the NHS will only offer me levothyroxine which makes me ill. My GP says it doesn't matter that I was getting increasingly fat and lethargic, the test results are all that matter. They don't even test for it properly. The TSH test is bullshit.

I'm only still registered in case I get hit by a car or something!

Gatorade some hospital consultants are going back to porcine thyroxine which a patient told me the other day and she tolerates it better. Perhaps look into that?

Labour had their good points and bad points. However they inherited a shitload of problems from the Thatcher-Major years. Margaret thatcher nearly destroyed the NHS completely.

Gator..neck injury=AE visit

If you don't believe the health care advice given to you that's up to you but it's certainly not to say you are correct...buying online thyroxine from Mexico. ..No thanks!

All of the problems of the NHS can be laid at the feet of the Government. Probably the only good thing that Andrew Lansley did was to want to remove political interference from the NHS - unfortunately that idea got lost and now we are at the whim of Jeremy *unt's ego and ambition.

GPs and primary care do 90% of the work, yet get only 10% of the money - in what way is that fair? In my research we often see studies that are written by people who assume that the patient can be recruited in an outpatient's clinic - whilst, in fact, they are now exclusively managed by their GP.

Most consultants I know are arrogant and have little knowledge of, and interest in, general practice. Conversely, most GPs I know are constantly thinking about the pressures on secondary care.

No-one in the NHS has had a payrise in the last few years - nurses, managers, doctors, GPs. Yes, it reduces morale and makes people fucking angry when we see bankers get away with massive salaries and bonuses for fucking up, or the government giving itself an 11% payrise, or the fucking Royal family being handed £4million to decorate a house for 2 already rich people.

What the NHS needs now, more than anything, is a period of calm, without inflammatory headlines and without political interference. We need time to concentrate on improving services without major re-organisations. If we can't have anymore money, then we need to support to implement the QIPP programme properly. We have a lot of talent in the NHS, at all levels and in all positions. We just need the time to harness what we have and the space to do it in.

For those who say that no-one has copied our model - what about Obama-care?

I think managers had a payrise.

GPs and Hospital Docs should ,and ime ,do respect each others roles.

You'll always get tho odd old consultant who both decries the EWTD and the loss of GPs OOH but you can't win them all.

No, managers didn't have a payrise. NO-ONE had a payrise. Do not believe everything you read in the papers.

Zeezee - you know a weird collection of consultants then.

I know an awful lot of GPs & Consultants (DH being one of the latter & very active in the BMA) and they get along fine & with mutual respect without arrogance.

Occasionally there are fuckwits in both camps but generally their bugbear is with the government, the dismantling of the systems/funding & Jeremy Hunts current agenda not their respective job roles.

I don't blame the GPs per se, but I blame an underresourced system for making it virtually impossible for me as a shift worker to get an appointment. At times it has been genuinely distressing, particularly when the only alternative is waiting three hours after a twelve hour night shift for open access. Having moved to a country with an element of co-paying, I am just pleased to be able to book an appointment. It pains me to say this, as I am fervently in favour of the NHS as an entity and principle - but in general practice in many areas something is clearly broken. Again, I don't equate that opinion with being down on GPs themselves, who are clearly often stretched ridiculously.