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.

I mean, if OP had no other way of seeing a doctor she'd likely have said that in one of her posts. She said she's been considering A&E but putting it off because of the snow. So if a walk in isn't available and it's urgent and threatening and a GP appointment isn't available, logic would suggest you'd go to A&E.

So what would you suggest in that situation if your surgery had no more appointments that day to see you and you didn't fancy/couldn't make the trip to the walk in?

What would I do? Well as I said I have the money to pay for a taxi so if nothing else could be done I would go to A & E but I don't think it is reasonable to assume everyone can afford that. So to suggest that people haven't got any common sense if they don't do that is unreasonable.

I find it hard to believe that having that spare appointment didn't mean doctors caught up as they always seem to be running a few minutes late so I don't see why they couldn't see her. Doctors must have a duty of care and she needed to be seen.

Some real arseholes on this post.

I think the "didn't fancy" comment is sarcastic. If you were feeling really ill, maybe developing sepsis would you "fancy" a wait for a bus and a 90 minute plus bus ride on rural roads?

I did say 'didn't fancy/couldn't make' so sepsis would fall into the latter imo.

I never said anything about common sense so I think you have me mistaken for another poster.

Just to say there isn't a walk in centre where I live x

"I find it hard to believe that having that spare appointment didn't mean doctors caught up as they always seem to be running a few minutes late so I don't see why they couldn't see her. Doctors must have a duty of care and she needed to be seen."

Okay, so if patients are allowed to be late how would they 'get caught up' with an erratic stream of patients they had no way of anticipating or planning for?

To those who are unfamiliar: at almost all GP surgeries they are given ten mins per appointment. That's ten minutes to call patient from the waiting room, sometimes go out to assist them to the clinic room if they are having mobility problems or wait several minutes for very infirm people to get to the room. Then to sit down. Ask questions. Try gain the relevant info from a patient who may be embarrassed, reticient, confused, ashamed, only know local dialect for body parts, not know how to describe where the pain is, may be full of anxiety or have health anxiety so feel compelled to explain every last thing, be talkative, lonely, just want company or mistakenly believe the doctor enjoys seeing them, may need an interpreter or have a learning disability.

Then the doctor has to assess, maybe conduct an examination of the body, or an assessment questionnaire, diagnose. Take a history. Clarify symptoms. Rule things out. Ask about family history. Consider contraindications and medication interactions. Decide on treatment. Explain options. Answer questions. Explain how to take the medication. Write a referral to another service. Reassure. Answer more questions. Write print and sign prescription. Say goodbye. Maybe walk them back out.

And then type up notes, save patient record, call the next one in.

In ten minutes. Six times per hour. For 8-10 hours.

But sure, just squeeze someone else in.

Into where? When your appointment ledger is booked up every ten mins all day long you simply CANNOT offer an additional service where you 'squeeze someone in' who did not attend their appointment.

I'm not a doctor btw but I think a lot of patients could honestly stand to try it for a day to get a better understanding from the patient's perspective of why as a patient you can't always get what you want when you want it in such a stretched system.

So normally at the end of the day, a 5pm slot ends up with me being seen at 6pm. Start opening up a surgery to walk ins without an appointment and that one hour delay (which is usually due to either an emergency or lots of appointments taking longer than ten mins) now becomes two or three hours. Are we okay with doctors being so overworked they are doing clinical patient work for an extras few hours each day and being exhausted and unable to work a GP job unless they have no family responsibilities?

@snash12 '
GPs need a triage system. Nobody who is potentially dangerously ill should be refused a pretty much immediate appointment.

Thats when you go to a&e'

If you'd read the rest of my post, you'd see that the answer is 'no, not necessarily.' I could go to A&E with an asthmatic child (and obviously will if they look bad enough), but it is often quicker and easier - and certainly cheaper for the NHS - to get nebs and an antibiotic prescription at the GPs. Doesn't mean it isn't highly urgent. Luckily, my GP surgery are eminently sensible and know this too, unlike much of this thread.

I suspect the same people telling OP to get to A&E right now would also be the same ones shouting 'A&E IS FOR EMERGENCIES ONLY' if I suggested that I'd just taken my wheezy toddler to A&E 6 times in 3 months when the GP could have given the same treatment in the surgery!

This thread is turning into the equivalent of 'if you like left-wing governments why don't you go and live in North Korea' that you get on politics threads, especially you Lemon. There's quite a large middle ground between a total free-for-all at the doctor's surgery and turning away potentially septic patients. NOBODY has suggested surgeries opening to random walk-ins willy nilly, Lemon. You are setting up straw men.

I never said anything about common sense so I think you have me mistaken for another poster.

Not sure why you thought that was directed at you?

Re the ten minutes appointments, they rarely run to time so when OP didn't turn up the person after her would be seen closer to the actual time of their appointment, at the end of the day the doctor would have got through her list ten minutes earlier than she would have if she had seen OP so she had ten minutes to see OP.

I don't think anyone has suggested that every one should just walk in when they feel like it. The OP was unavoidably delayed, she let the surgery know, she has a potentially life threatening condition that can deteriorate quickly and at the end of the day they have given her an appointment so that was possible when she originally phoned.

Sorry granny, as your following post was a response to me I assumed the one a minute before was too.

frogsoup: if they allow patients without an appointment to turn up and be seen without an appointment they are essentially now taking walk ins. And a few posters have absolutely stated that's what should have happened for the OP.

Re the ten minutes appointments, they rarely run to time so when OP didn't turn up the person after her would be seen closer to the actual time of their appointment, at the end of the day the doctor would have got through her list ten minutes earlier than she would have if she had seen OP so she had ten minutes to see OP.

That relies on every single patient for the rest of the day arriving ten minutes early. Add in another latecomer every couple hours and now they need to arrive 30 mins early in order for all of the latecomers to be seen at the end without running over

I understand what you're trying to say mathematically but a GP clinic doesn't actually run in neat little ten minute slots that can be moved around like jigsaw pieces. Can you understand that?

I set out an hour earlier. I’m sure it’ll be really inconvenient to all the non life threatening conditions in there if they were made to wait an extra 10 minutes.

And if I've scheduled my GP appt to fit around collecting DCs, disabled DGM, work, and my own commitments, my family and boss can all go fuck themselves because your needs are more important than mine? YABVVVU.

It doesn't rely on everyone being early, as you have pointed out yourself they often run late, hence you being seen at 6 pm for a 5 pm appointment also doctors take breaks during 9 am to 5 pm so it can get juggled about.

I don't see it as her being seen without an appointment, she had an appointment and was delayed, not the same thing.

Anyway the surgery were able to see her so no reason why they made it an issue. Let us just hope OP is all right.

And if I've scheduled my GP appt to fit around collecting DCs, disabled DGM, work, and my own commitments, my family and boss can all go fuck themselves because your needs are more important than mine? YABVVVU.

I'd love to have seen your face when my GP left the surgery when I was having a home delivery, everyone had to wait over an hour. Bloody inconvenient baby with no consideration.

grannytomine So the surgery should start seeing people who don't have an appointment because they're already running late usually, even if it makes them even more late? Surely it's better for everyone to try and work things around so people are seen on time and less late!

I don't see it as her being seen without an appointment, she had an appointment and was delayed, not the same thing.

But that is exactly what it is. If your appointment is at 10am and you don't attend, then you arrive at 12, that 10am has gone. You no longer have an appointment. They're not usually flexible and can be moved around, unless there's space (which there wasn't according to OP first post). You don't hang onto an appointment until you need it at another time, the nature of an appointment is that it's a specified date and time.

And yes I agree we all hope OP is okay. If it is sepsis I hope she went to A&E.

This thread is a great insight into how patients think about their healthcare provider and how patients contribute to the NHS being used poorly and struggling! (There are other more salient reasons obviously but there are also responsibilities patients have to not take the piss), can't say I blame surgeries for having strict policies to try and combat the 'me me me' entitled attitude of some people (OP did try and cancel hers and couldn't get through to be fair but the comments about how nobody else in the clinic had as urgent a need as her were uncalled for)

"frogsoup: if they allow patients without an appointment to turn up and be seen without an appointment they are essentially now taking walk ins. And a few posters have absolutely stated that's what should have happened for the OP."

TRIAGE!!! You aren't going to get dozens of patients a day demanding immediate attention for their ingrowing toenail. The fact is, this system DOES work, because many people on this thread have stated that it's exactly how their own surgery operates. Mine does, and yet it appears not to have collapsed under the weight of 'entitled' dying patients. You sometimes wait a while after your appointment time to be seen, but then you do anywhere. Sometimes that's because the GP is seeing somebody urgently, and that's absolutely fine by me. I'd certainly prefer to be at a surgery where I knew I or my children would be an absolute priority if I was seriously ill.

So according to you, when I had a serious allergic reaction after an injection once, should all 5 GPs in the surgery have ignored me and just sent me on to A&E because they were busy seeing other patients and my appointment had been with the nurse?!

If an appointment is for ten and you aren't there, the next person may not come until ten past. So you see them. The twenty past ten person was almost certainly not there. Most people actually don't come early for their appointments. So now you are left with an extra person to fut into the end of day.
It doesn't work mathematically at all. And not in practice.

*if we were seriously ill

" if I've scheduled my GP appt to fit around collecting DCs, disabled DGM, work, and my own commitments, my family and boss can all go fuck themselves because your needs are more important than mine? YABVVVU."

If somebody was going to die of sepsis as a consequence of not being seen, then, um, yes, their needs are more important than all of those commitments. Isn't that really fucking obvious?!

Hope you are ok op

I think gps do try and be accommodating - she got a second appointment later in the day - but the gp might also be seeing urgent patients after her until that time. Lots of people go because they have a chest infection for example - lots of things can turn into a life threatening condition.

The judging is strong on this thread.

OP, it might be worth asking your surgery if they could set up a text service so you can cancel by text in future. My place does text alerts and reminders, and I can cancel appointments by text when I need to. No more waiting on the 'phone for ages.

I am sorry you are having such an awful time, I wish you well.