To think my GP Surgery should stop taking new patients?

[VioletVaccine]

Obviously I know everyone needs access to a Doctor. But, our doctor surgery is absolutely jam packed every single day.
It takes 3 weeks to get a general doctor's appointment, and up to 5 weeks to see your named GP. I'm not exaggerating!

I phoned for an appt for DD1 on Monday for a possible ear infection, they booked her in for March 28th. I said its a bit more urgent than that, reception said "Well if she is suffering, you'll have to attend the Walk in Centre".
Fair enough if that's necessary, but outside the surgery doors, there's a big banner that says, "We welcome new NHS Patients".

AIBU to think, if a surgery is that over-run you need to wait a month to see a Doctor, it's wrong to keep taking in more patients?

Why should people need to attend a Walk-in Centre for 4 hours because they can't see their own doctor for a month, while the surgery they are registered with are encouraging new patients to register?

I agree that this awful state of affairs is happening on purpose. I work in a GP surgery and it's awful being on the other side hearing the receptionists taking the flack' they often end up in tears.

The reason this is happening is so that the govt can tell us all how the NHS is failing so badly that it now has no choice but to privatise.

Wanna take a guess at who has stakes in the private medical industry? Not the prominent politicians, mostly, but dig only just below the surface and you'll find a whole grubby world of self interest.

Actually, no, I personally pay nothing at present. If I was fully waged I would pay at point of use (about €60 a visit), and also through my taxes. But since at the moment I do not pay taxes and have free medical care, I pay nothing at all.

There aren't enough GPs. That's the long and the short of it.

Patients are getting a raw deal, GPs and their staff hate it but there's no easy solution with the current funding model.

I'm a GP who has left the NHS. Part of the reason I left was that I didn't feel that I could provide safe care for patients within the current system. I was also close to burn out. I realise that those of us who have left make things harder for everyone else, but sometimes you have to do the right thing for yourself and your family.

GPs can apply to close their list but it is rarely granted. If one practice closes their list then the patients still have to be accommodated somewhere, and this is likely to be another overstretched surgery.

The government seem to think it's a good idea to close community pharmacies. I can't understand the logic of closing the facilities that can take minor ailments off over stretched GPs workload. I use our local one all the time.

My GP s practice is excellent. May have to wait a couple of days for a non urgent appointment but can always get an urgent one.
I have problems due to my dd dying, and last week went to the surgery and recieved great treatment. He even rang me at 9 pm to ask if I was any better.
Cannot ask for more

sugar21 so sad to hear that- but good that you have the support of a local practice.

I have to say the experiences on here are nothing like mine. Our GP service offers emergency appointments, and a child with an ear infection would be an emergency- as they could perforate the drum/if antibiotics aren't give when appropriate.

If we phone up for an appointment, the doctor (one of them, can be different ones) calls us back, usually within 30 min, and discusses the problem. For a child with an ongoing and painful infection, they would ask to see them that day and book an appointment. Mine have been in by 9.30am on emergency visits. If it's not urgent, they chat it through and either offer to see you within a week, or prescribe over the phone if it is something you have had before but just need advice on.

It's extremely efficient, this week I made a telephone call and sorted out both children (who would have otherwise needed face to face appointments) within about 7 minutes, and all prescriptions sent to local pharmacies.

I feel really sad reading about these other experiences, I have no idea why our surgery is so good. Even in London, we only have to wait about a week max for a non-urgent appointment, I wonder why the provision varies so much.

It's the same up and down the country.

Primary Care is in it's dying throws IMO
Unless there is some fantastic political turnaround that, frankly, I cannot see coming.

Demand is ever rising.
There are no GPs - nobody wants to train to be a GP and I can see why.
I love my job, but if I won the lottery tomorrow I'd be out. You have no idea how sad and angry it makes me to be saying that.

I have a serious underlying health condition, but still very rarely get a GP appointment. I had to recently attend my local Walk In, who misdiagnosed me. This resulted in me having to go to A&E twice , second time admitted, each time a two hour wait to get triaged and at least a four hour over all wait, there were no seats left in A&E. If I'd have been seen when I first needed to be, things wouldn't have got that far.

In my area, one GP practice lost its licence, another moved, not far, but far enough to struggle when ill, this is a 'few car'area.

Four family houses (previous tenants were driven out because of the bedroom tax) are being left empty, they are earmarked for Refuggees, yet we, as a city (Liverpool) aren't being given the funding to accommodate the extra issues this brings.

The cuts in benefits and increase in redundancies are putting more strain on to health services.

I think many GP practices are facing a crisis and it's via A&E and other departments that we'll pick up the cost.

HP, what you are describing is something like 'DoctorFirst' which is a doctor led triage system. It does rely on doctors making hundreds of phone calls every day and there are instances where telephone triage goes wrong.
It is an option that we are considering too.

A+Es are just as overstretched and underresourced.
There are hundreds of consultants' posts unfilled in the country.
It is quite horrific how the most satisfying occupation can be made so horrible by red tape and politically motivated hoops to jump through that there is barely any doctoring left and many well qualified and experienced doctors leave the profession or the country (or both).

Whilst I was in hospital during chats to the doctors that had to do the specialist bloods etc, they were all saying that if the governments plans go ahead most of them are leaving the NHS.

They're disgusted enough at the awarding of contracts, across the whole NHS, which seems to go on the basis of who your friends with.

All of them were saddened to be having to make the decisions that they are, including industrial action.

This AIBU thread is an excellent illustration of why it is so hard to get a GP appointment. Every GP encounters a totally inappropriate request like this at least twice a week, often much more. We even have a name for it - GANFYD - "Get a note from your doctor

Other public services like schools and job centres are the worst offenders. I am not blaming the patients at all - I blame the organisations that just assume that they can waste a GP's time.

There are about 35,000 GPs in England. Even if only half of them are at work in any given week, 2 appointments each per week wasted on this sort of crap, adds up to 35,000 wasted appointments a week - nearly 2 million a year.

It does rely on doctors making hundreds of phone calls every day and there are instances where telephone triage goes wrong yes, telephone triage can be a disaster, I can see, if they don't know their patients or something vital is missed, but in our case, the doctors who already know you/have the notes, call you and they are very keen on booking you in for appointments, in other words, they are not triaging to keep patients away, quite the opposite, they pick out the ones that need immediately seeing and see them straight away- as I say, pretty much every time I've called about a child, I've not only been seen, but within a few hours, sometimes the next day, because they manage their own lists and know who they want to see urgently.

I'm sure you could slip through the net though, but I think it's better to have that than not be able to book a child in with an ear infection for a week or two which seems to me more inherently dangerous as for every one that's just going to resolve, there might be another (rarer) one that goes very nasty indeed and in a week's time may have permanent consequences.

I just know it works for us but that's because I trust the drs doing the triaging, and I know they have enough appointment that day to see emergencies, so I have confidence in the system. If it was like the NHS helpline reading off a script and totally unable to include clinical judgement, it would be a disaster.

Birds if thats true i can see that causing division.

birds - that is true.

The Tories are selling us all to their mates for a song.