Doctors won’t see me (saga continues)

[TheCatsPaws]

Previous posts about severe anxiety, recurrent miscarriages.

Had a D&C on Wednesday. Yesterday had a raging temperature, coloured discharge and general unwell feeling. Rang EPU who said to make an emergency doctors appointment today re possible infection.

Got an emergency appointment today. Stuck in traffic for half an hour because road is covered in snow. Rang GP, stuck on phone for 20 minutes. Got told by a receptionist that “sorry you’re too late, we won’t see you”

I explained I had surgery on Wednesday and the ward thinks I have an infection, and wants me to see a dr today. “Sorry that’s our policy”. After much arguing, I asked if she’ll be personally responsible if I get sepsis to which she just quoted policy at me again.

AIBU to be fuming? I’m going down to the surgery and demanding to see the manager right now.

YABVU.

While I sympathise with your situation, the simple facts of the matter are plain. They were happy to see you but you missed your appointment (costing them hundreds of pounds), which whether it was deliberate or not, is your fault and your problem, not theirs.

Your lack of empathy for and nastiness about the other patients there is shocking. If everyone was seen when they were late, GPs would never go home!

Just quoting some of your words back to you Lemonshark.
Glad your going to get some help OP take care.

Ok I’m missing the fact that it was snowing.

In general I would say that if you were late, the tough that is your issue.
However on a day with snow, a lot, if not most people will be late and you have much more flexibility than you have in a normal day.
Or rather you should have more flexibility

Firesuit It's not about the individual instance. It's the fact that if they remove the policy about needing to be on time, people will quickly learn they can be late and then each day there'll be multiple instances which lead to disorder, people who show up not being seen on time, the clinic not being able to mark someone down as DNA and move on but keeping slots open for the rest of the day in case they show up, then being unable to keep to time even remotely as it's now essentially a walk in centre.

It's tempting to see it as 'oh just this once it'd be fine' but that's only the case if they do only offer it as a one off to OP. Then where is the fairness in that? They have no choice but to allow ALL patients to come late and be seen or none. So as awkward as this is for the ones who are late, it's for the greater good for all patients in the long term.

TheCatsPaws I suppose the problem is if they start being flexible to fit people in it'll become the norm and the whole thing will go to hell in a handbasket for everybody who has an appointment.

Or they could have an algorithm that says: see people who've checked in the order of their appointment times, only in the unlikely event that there is no patient in reception who can be seen early to fill a vacant slot do you cancel the appointment.

Some of these replies are so lacking in compassion it's depressing.

OP didn't just decide she couldn't be arsed, she was late due to snow, which means other people may well be too. I have sat waiting in my surgery past appointment time first thing to see the doctor arrive late.
Some degree of flexibility is required and the doctors will or should be able to use their judgement.
As it happens where I live there are no walk in centres so the GP would try to fit in a patient in OP'a circumstances.

Sorry for your loss OP and do go to A&E or back to the EPU today if you feel any worse physically before your appointment later.

I see you've an appointment later - so it is possible to get to see a doctor once you get past the receptionist. My local GP practice used to be great, receptionists busy, efficient but human. Over the last few years the receptionist number have doubled, they can be seen chatting, eating, drinking and some seem to see us patients as dim children to be patronised. It's the tick box mentality of people who can't think for themselves.

Firesuit very sensible.

What missing an appointment does NOT cost hundred of pounds. You are being over dramatic there!!
A GP appointment costs about £20 if that.

And when it’s snowing, you WILL have a lot of late arrivals as well as cancellations. Most businesses will ‘loose’ money because of it. That’s part of the business side unfortunately

You do need to be seen. Best thing to do is call the unit where you had the termination.

However frustrating it is never get arsey with staff. They do deal with a LOT of abuse, verbal and even physical and if you start getting confrontational you will get nowhere. It shouldn’t happen but it does.

What’s important now is that you’re seen. Ring the unit you had the procedure on. They will have the equipment needed to scan etc and check all is ok. If they can’t see you then local walk in.

There is a real gap in the acute but not dire emergency healthcare in the uk - we need more out of hours walk in centres to take the pressure off A and E.

Christ, reading this, I'm glad my GP has always been reasonable - emergencies get seen, even if you're late, even if you ring up with 1/2 an hour until they shut because your kid has suddenly gone down hill. And if it turns out to be a blue-light affair, they step up even further.

Of course it's a village GP, so this whole walk-in centre thing just doesn't exist, and A&E is a good 30 minutes away, even in an ambulance, and roads sometimes get closed so they apply common sense to the situation and pull in someone who's there early for an appointment rather than letting it go to waste.

I think OPs allowed to be a bit selfish and upset and self centred - she's probably sore, grieving her child, scared and fed up. I can understand frustration with it all and can't judge you OP . I'd probably feel similar. Glad you have a later appt.

Last year I went to a my local pharmacist as I had a swelling in my hand. I was told that I needed to see a GP as soon as possible for antibiotics. I called my surgery for an emergency appointment, this was around lunchtime on a Friday, and I was given a time in the early afternoon. I was around an hour away from my surgery when I made the appointment and I had to call them en route to say I was running late. I was late through no fault of my own as I was some distance away when they gave me the appointment, I travel by public transport and I, not surprisingly, had no choice about the time of the appointment. My surgery were very understanding about this and still saw me. If another health professional says you need to be seen by a doctor urgently, you need to be seen by a doctor urgently.

Yes, if every patient were late it would be chaos, but sometimes delays are unavoidable and if a patient needs an urgent check the doctor surgery either has to see them, or, at the very least, tell them where the nearest walk in clinic or A&E is located. Even if you really dislike tardiness, would you want somebody losing a life, or in my case a hand over it? Let's not pretend that it is likely the everybody on the GP waiting room had a life threatening ailment, or even suspected they had one. It is in the news today that people should consider seeing a pharmacist first before visiting their GP with minor ailments.

If I were the receptionist I may be pissed off about another patient being late, but if I were told you had needed to see a GP urgently on the advice of the hospital then I would be looking to ensure you were seen. It's still important to be polite though, politely push to be seen today, or go to A&E or minor ailments. It's possibly better to challenge their policy of not seeing late patients under any circumstances later.

Why couldn't the surgery just let other patients go in first and then slot OP in, mine always runs late so you are sat for at least 10 minutes anyway.

My surgery would be more accommodating too.

"'if they start being flexible to fit people in it'll become the norm and the whole thing will go to hell in a handbasket"

No, because in that situation you have good triage. If I missed my regular appointment for something not immediately urgent, for whatever reason, they'd tell me to ring first thing next day to rebook, and rightly so. But for breathing difficulties or post-op fever or similar they will always fit you in. We don't have walk-in surgeries here, just an out of hours service that is also triaged by phone before they even let you turn up. If a surgery makes rigid policies more important than responding to an immediate situation, they are playing with fire. Can you imagine what an inquest judge would say to a surgery who had turned away someone very obviously dangerously ill?

At least you called to let them know you were running late. The amount of times I've been sat waiting for my appointment and someone comes in saying 'oh I'm half an hour late but can I still be seen' is ridiculous, and my surgery is quite good at squeezing you in if you let them know asap.

Glad you got it sorted OP but please do make sure and go to A&E if you feel even the slightest bit worse. These things can turn bad far too quickly.

It's the fact that if they remove the policy about needing to be on time, people will quickly learn they can be late and then each day there'll be multiple instances which lead to disorder

Appointments could still be potentially cancelled if people were late, so I don't think there would be much incentive for a change in behaviour. With my algorithm above there would be absolutely no disruption to other patients appointments, either a few other patients would be seen early or an appointment would be cancelled.

That's quite alright Pannalash, albeit unnecessary. It's been about an hour since the thread began, I'm well aware of my own posting content

Some amount of assholes on this thread.

The majority of decent GP surgeries wld have just said to still come we'll fit you in.

I needed antibiotic due to post surgery stuff, rang them & explained, there were no appointments but receptionist got GP to ring me & he left a prescription to collect.

I work with folk with LD, sometimes getting them out the unit to appointment on time is challenging, the receptionists & GP know this can be a prob and will still fit them in regardless.

You do need to be seen. Best thing to do is call the unit where you had the termination.

She didn't have a termination. She had a surgically managed miscarriage.

Have lots of other people misunderstood this too? I wouldn't condone people being so horrible to someone who'd just had an abortion, either, but I'm really shocked that people are doing this to someone whose just had a miscarriage.

I'm really sorry for your loss and that you're having to go through this, OP

Or they could have an algorithm that says: see people who've checked in the order of their appointment times, only in the unlikely event that there is no patient in reception who can be seen early to fill a vacant slot do you cancel the appointment.

I’ve thought this too. Surely they could see another patient in my slot and swap us? It doesn’t make sense to me why this doesn’t happen.

I also agree with the comment that said there’s a lack of acute care in the UK.

I’m sorry if I sound like I’m being selfish, but in the last 8 months I’ve had four miscarriages, surgery, and anxiety as a result of this and I just want to feel well again! I’m sick of feeling shit all the time and when I do everything I can to try and help myself and still get refused it gets very frustrating.

What missing an appointment does NOT cost hundred of pounds. You are being over dramatic there!!
A GP appointment costs about £20 if that.

Married3Children Incorrect. So we can take the “s” of hundred; it costs £100.

A single missed appointment costs in the region of £100

www.nhsborders.scot.nhs.uk/patients-and-visitors/latest-news/2016/july/7/the-real-cost-of-a-missed-appointment/

Last year, missed appointments cost the NHS £1 billion. That is absolutely unacceptable.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/02/patients-missing-their-appointments-cost-the-nhs-1bn-last-year

Thank you Lisa. I remember messaging you before about miscarriage tests, I hope you are also doing okay.