To think a 6 week wait for a GP appointment is totally ridiculous

[fussychica]

Just tried to book an appointment at our local surgery to get something checked out. Not been for ages and I was expecting a 2 - 3 week wait but apparently there are no face to face appointments before the 4th Jan and they are not releasing any appointments beyond that date until the end of next week. There are also no 5 minute telephone consultations available until after 21 Dec. Apparently there is no doctor shortage at the surgery.
I am really shocked and not quite sure what to do apart from go private. It's not an emergency at the moment but at the same time I'm not happy to wait 6 weeks to sort it.
Have written to my MP advising him of the situation, for all the good it's likely to do.

So is this the norm now or are the people of this town alone in receiving such a sub standard service?

Becca that is fucking atrocious

Just a heads up...................

www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/live-broomfield-hospital-norovirus-outbreak-2257601?fbclid=IwAR05YY6_uHPWyLyRt-tYCcsNzvIKJSJnvAJIQFtNbBEPinqjDB4hUzzX8Lc

If it's such a cushy job for enormous pay, you'd think that everyone would be falling over themselves to do it. Yet, they aren't..... I can guarantee you there are reasons for this

Great summary from Jacks11.

It's a mystery, isn't it? Such an easy life, being a GP, what with 5-6 years of medical school, accruing £70k debt, then a minimum of 5 years' post-graduate training, moving jobs every 4 months, little choice in where you work, often not able to live with your partner, paying for all your own study and exams. Then you qualify and it's straight into 10-12 hour days, 100+ patient contacts a day, constantly trying to cover for the inadequacy (due to underfunding) of mental health services, social services & secondary care, paying £10-20,000 a year for medical indemnity cover. And you get called lazy by Mumsnetters if you have the temerity to work part-time (part-time, incidentally being the same as full-time for most people). And you get blamed because a decade of under-investment means that there aren't enough of GPs to go round - but yup, that's the fault of those lazy GP bitches (can you believe it - some of them actually have the nerve to have children? - the ingratitude) and not the government.

Yeah, it's a total mystery why general practice is struggling to recruit.

If there are no positives why does anyone do it? There must be something that makes people carry on.

XXstatic well said. I said similar at 0649hrs, before I sat down to study for the whole day, rather than spend the day with DH and DC.

weetabix I stay because:

1. Very occasionally I get some satisfaction from my job.
2. A quarter of a century on from starting university it would seem like a bit of a waste to throw away my time, effort and experience

3.There is no other job where I could get paid what I do and dictate exactly when I want to work. Point 3 is what makes it bearable. And just for reference I do work weekends and nights, but only if it suits. And no, I’m not sorry. The NHS took all of my 20s and most of my 30s, and now I’m taking some of my life back.

@Graphista I wasn’t speaking about wages being lower for families I was speaking about companies being able to employ people on lower salaries. In my town two banks shut their call centres down very quickly. Over 600 people worked in one of these (me being one of them) the other was also a full 12 storey building so I imagine a few 100, with almost immediate effect trains and roads started to get a lot more busy as people desperate for work started using these services to get out of town where there were more jobs. The trains services put on more trains and perhaps in lucky as the service is quite reasonable. This would have happened irrelevant of energy companies being around in the uk as we don’t live anywhere near those services.

EON has a rather large office in the UK so as a company have not completely disappeared.

Also with relevance to someone saying they pay more in private healthcare amounts when not living in the uk, private healthcare is expensive here because the annual amount paid for private is on top of the heavy taxes we pay to run the nhs. And if you pay through your company the government kindly taxes you as benefit in kind as well.

Becca that is absolutely appalling! Not surprised it's Wales though as I've heard from friends there it's getting ridiculously bad!

Frogbike - you said "we didn't have a living wage" that's the point I was addressing. And it's all interlinked anyway. Plus why should companies pay low wages if they can afford not to? They don't move operations because their struggling terribly they do so out of greed. Personally I think the govt needs to regulate how certain British based companies act, the outsourcing of work and even the selling of British companies overseas does not always best serve the uk population. Look at the absolute lies and betrayal of British workers that occurred in relation to the sale of Cadbury.

I don't think being a GP is a "cushy" job, but I'm not buying GP's are so hard done by as is claimed either. Do they really think a job in public service with such a high salary isn't going to be fairly demanding? If they go into it not realising that surely that's naive?

Do they really think a job in public service with such a high salary isn't going to be fairly demanding? If they go into it not realising that surely that's naive?
Lots of people make naive decisions at 16 (when they are choosing to go to med school) or even 24 (when choosing to be a GP). You spend a few days at a GP practice for work experience, which usually involves pitching up just before the clinic starts and leaving when it ends. I'm not aware of anyone who is forced to sit and watch at GP do 4 hours of admin as part of their day of work experience. In fact sitting for hours watching a GP do admin isn't part of medical school training either.
When making your career choice you have no idea if you'll be a mother/partner/olympic skier in later life and how those decisions/life events/new found talents will affect your career/ability to work full time. With the exception of the Forces, most people have flexibility and choice within their career, I don't see how or why doctors should be any different.

GP’s I work with on a professional level have very high standards and very much engaged with wanting to ‘make a difference’ - which if you ask anyone who works within the clinical or care profession that usually one of the main reasons for entering the profession in the first place. No one goes into healthcare thinking ‘over 15 years I could work 100 hour weeks but one day I will earn £100k!’

What is grating on people on this thread is the underlying insinuation that GP’s are just collecting their ££££ and can’t possibly feel as bad as someone on minimum wage or understand their life.

I honestly find this completely naïve if I am honest. This is not about money really is it? It’s about a very blinkered view of the people who get paid a lot of money in a failing system to try keep people alive and well. Anyone could work in a shop - retail is well known for catering for people of all ages and abilities. Doctors are tasked (and trusted) with human life itself, making judgements and finding solutions, looking for warning signs, trying to build systems and work with government policy. It’s almost unbelievable people would comment on a doctor salary and working hours in the context that I have seen here

" Anyone could work in a shop - retail is well known for catering for people of all ages and abilities"

Retail workers are expected to go in on Boxing Day in a lot of cases now

Can you name a GP surgery that is open on Boxing Day?

Doctors are tasked (and trusted) with human life itself, making judgements and finding solutions, looking for warning signs, trying to build systems and work with government policy.

Yes that's correct. Patients' lives depend on this.

So back to the OP - it would be good if patients could get to see the people who are tasked with our lives eh?

@HelenaDove

Yes and I am in fact covering the desk personally over the bank holiday period while the GP’s see 4 hours of patients

It's similar at our practice - between 4 and 6 weeks for a routine appointment. It's not the fault of the GPs though - all at our surgery are lovely and can't do enough for their patients but sadly there just aren't enough of them.

You can get emergency same day appointments if you ring at 8am and children under 5 are guaranteed an appointment (which I was very grateful for when my son had a nasty ear infection).

I do think part of the problem is people taking up appointments for things that either a pharmacist could help with or you can self care for e.g. colds, sore throats, non infected conjunctivitis. I have genuinely heard people in the GP waiting room telling others that they are there because of something that could be dealt with without a GP appointment.

Then again, it's the same with A&E - many people go when a GP or walk in centre would be more appropriate.

Actually ON Boxing Day itself?

@HelenaDove I'm in an area of London where a GPs practice will be open on actual Boxing Day for emergencies.

Due to several of the better practices (though I struggle to include my last practice in this due the racism and sexism I put up with) taking over smaller practices that were labelled as "poor", then they are tasked with providing services in the late evenings, Saturdays and public holidays.

Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day. I just booked desk cover for the 2 other days. If you require, I will show you some evidence? What would suffice?

Blimey we wouldnt get that here.

I am a gp and working boxing day. 12hr shift in out of hours

There should not be any person in the U.K. who cannot access some kind of medical care at Christmas. We do not live in a 3rd world country.

I appreciate it is not the kind of medical care people would ideally like ie bountiful GP appointments at very convienient days and times (a choice), with the same GP who knows you very well and no waiting lists for other services but people really do have rose tinted specs don’t they. In Ye Olden Days they didn’t have even a fraction of the high quality/technological advances in healthcare they have today, with these advances has naturally followed demand. In 1950 you probably got a disease, and died from the disease or learned to live with it. Nowadays you get immunised against the disease or you have a multitude of treatment options. We managed to contain Ebola FGS in our hospitals. We have almost eradicated or awesome at preventing the spread of hospital acquired infections in the organisation I work in. We are fucking amazing in many respects. But with the changes to our environment, climate, eating habits, health, increased mortality ages and advances we all need more that we perhaps did and demand outstrips capacity. Dr Bloggs working 97 hours a week is not to blame for all of this. Stop laying this blame at an easy target of doctors. We would be fucked without them

It's ridiculous. Our surgery does an on the day appt system. So I call in the morning and hopefully get through to speak to someone then hopefully get an appt!
It's also not a great system for example my 6 week post partum check up! I'll have to trail two kids with me as I can't organise childcare on the off chance I get an appointment

PookieDo

I'm not blaming individual doctors but me feeling sympathetic towards gps doesn't get me an appointment or stop my infection over whelming me or help with my symptom control so that I can carry on working.

Correct me if I am wrong but my understanding is that GP practices are private businesses under contract to the NHS right? Therefore, it's a fair comment to say that some of those businesses aren't performing or organising themselves very well.

If a surgery up the road can manage then why can't the others in the area? They are serving the same population.

I don't blame individual doctors. I've now doubt that they are working flat out but as a patient you are left to struggle and that is very hard to cope with.

It's hard to be in a lot of pain because you need a knee replacement but you are considered too young to have it so are expected to just put up with it. At the same time to be told that they won't prescribe pain killers because they are addictive. Yes I know. So how shall I manage then? Walking is so painful, sitting hurts, I can't sleep but I can't complain because the GPs are working very hard?

We have 5 week waits here. If you’re ill you need to be seen within a day or two. Ridiculous. I tried to book a smear test in early Oct. I have to wait til mid Dec. Was the earliest available appointment.

They are businesses but they have to adhere to many of the same processes and policies. All NHS orgs are run like businesses. They are all accountable to CCG and CQC and public health England etc etc

If your local practice is doing badly then like I have said up thread this is multifaceted. It is not as simple as X surgery is doing a crap job of it and Y surgery is amazing. Therefore = GP’s fault

Social care deficit - impacts on GP’s
Local acute hospitals that are struggling - impacts on GP’s
Staffing - if you cannot attract anyone to come and work in your surgery perhaps due to location and have to pay expensive locums you are already running yourself into the ground financially

And for the last time.....
GP’s typical have nothing to do, NOTHING with policies like referral criteria to other services. An acute hospital has its own set of criteria based on its own set of rules. Which is why they have made it easier to be seen at a hospital of your choice. Your GP has nothing to do with why you can’t get a knee replacement because they didn’t invent the policy. They will be as frustrated as you

I know they don't control me having a knee replacement. They do control prescribing me pain killers though don't they?

And 2 gp surgeries in the same town will have very similar social care deficits, same local hospitals etc.

The only difference will be how the surgeries are structured so their booking system, surgery hours and the such like. They are under the control of the practice.

That is the issue with services not being standardised, there is variability. Without knowing the underlying causes for your badly run surgery it’s hard to tell, it could simply be poor management. It could be an internal problem with staffing. It could be that new patients moving into the area have unexpectedly overwhelmed the practice and they are struggling to manage this influx on the income they have

Re painkillers I hear it’s frustrating. I had an acute condition myself last year that I required a lot of pain killers, and ran into problems for the same reasons. the orthopaedic neurosurgeons at the hospital had a criteria that didn’t fit my condition for X amount of weeks, this was not the fault of my GP and they have their own medical judgement on whether it’s safe to give someone addictive painkillers for an unspecified period of time possibly leading to even more problems further down the line. Ask your GP to write to the orthopaedic department. Ask for a referral to another hospital that will treat you (you are not limited to the closest hospital and I ended up travelling further for my own treatment)