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?

Graphista I think you are being harsh on women GPs who work PT. Traditionally a GP was a male who had a wife at home who took care of everything. Very very few women have an OH at home who takes care of everything. The other major issue is the lack of affordable childcare. While they have these dumb rules regarding funding for preschool places women earning close to £100k a year are going to work 3x a week so they qualify for the help for childcare. Once the DC hit school the issues don't stop. They are in and out of school like yoyo's. I have no idea how a dual income family without support locally cope without an au pair or someone like a housekeeper who can keep an eye on them until the DC are teens.

I find it interesting that women don't want to work FT when men do.

I agree nurse recruitment needs fixed from the massive cock up of removing bursaries for starters, also pay & conditions need to be better.

Want2besupermum - I haven't specified women GP's at all. I've said I don't think GP's - both sexes - should primarily be a part time BUT highly paid role which is how it stands currently.

As for the idea that GP's can't afford childcare - sorry but I don't believe GP's struggle to afford childcare especially given that they work office hours, don't work bank holidays and seem - based on the GP's I've had - to have pretty good annual leave entitlements too.

Especially when the bma guidance on salary is £57,655 for a 37.5 hour week and £30,146.67 for a 20 hour week MINIMUM, with the average being £90k. Plus in these days of greater equality if assuming the majority of GP's that are mothers also have partners/spouses who are equally responsible for childcare coverage. There are more sahd now, they can be with GP's as much as they're likely to be with someone in any other profession. Or they could work part time and cover childcare more that way.

Women in other professions have to juggle family life too. Ideally it would be easier for all, but the reality is we need people to fulfil certain roles and do so adequately to cover the needs of that role.

Also your example of when it was male full time GP's with a wife at home managing that side of things, was also when GP's did house calls, you could get an appointment when you needed it, saw the same patients rather than as it is now where you're lucky to see the same GP more than once - at all not even in a row - so fhe GP knew you!

Not only did this ensure continuity of care, it meant the GPS KNEW which patients were the ones to go to them for the slightest sniffle and those who had to be practically dying before they complained of anything. I'm sure it is partly because GP's DON'T know their patients well that they assume they're all the former. Which leads to poor care for the latter - who are the majority

My surgery has a system where you can q up at 7am to be let in at 8 and given an appointment. Attended once with poorly daughter and it seemed more of a social club. Everyone seemed to know each other, comparing there numbers and discussing where to go for coffee after. Perhaps we should appreciate the nhs and stop abusing it or start paying a minimal charge. I’ve recently had experience of the nhs at its very best. We need to look after it

I worked in general practice for 30 years as a non clinical member of the team, last 10 years as a Practice
Manager.

I do acknowledge that there can be inefficiencies and some practices are crap.

But I really don’t think some people on this thread have any idea what it is really like. Most of the GPs I worked with in my last job were on their knees. Yes a lot work part time but I can promise you that you do not get a good consultation when you are the last patient on a Friday night if that GP has worked FT all week. They have 10 minutes, often with extremely complex patients. These days this is often complicated further by terrible social problems and endless mental health. These poor patients will never have a long enough appointment to get all their needs addressed and so they have to keep coming back.

Then there are the entitled ones. People who take absolutely no responsibility for their own health or medication. People who hurl abuse at every member of the team they come into contact with and who think the NHS owes them whatever it is they want.

I have left the job I used to love because it is intolerable. There are not enough Doctors, not enough nurses and not enough resources to tackle social issues.

I wouldn’t go back to working in a Practice for all the money in the world. And some of the comments on this thread make me really sad.

The NHS is on its knees and will collapse due to the likes of type 2 diabetes, dementia and other long standing complex issues. Most of us will have a decade or two of ill health.

It’s not self inflicted but very poor lifestyle advice and then lifestyles is a direct cause.

And people really have to exercise and eat as well as they can to avoid ever having to see a GP

Add population growth of a million people every three years in the last decade - think about that number - and a completele lack of investment in austerity Britain - and see where we are.

Read up on someone like Aseem Maholtra for diet advice, take exercise and don’t worry about missing the diabetes clinic as it’s all outdated nonsense they peddle anyway.

Could I just point out that many of the GP jobs that people are criticising as ‘part time’ General Practice carry the same hours as a normal full time job. The intensity of work is relentless- often 12 hours without a break- and it is mentally exhausting. Every patient deserves your absolute full attention but you also need to be scrupulously safe and the thought of missing something serious, especially in a child, keeps me awake at night.

Another PP has pointed out that the part time GPs are often doing something else with their time not at their surgery. In our practice that varies from management, dermatology, sexual health and headache clinics. And the relentless never ending paperwork that we log on to do from home.

I’m not complaining, I love my job and I care deeply about my patients. But the Daily Mail/Telegraoh sponsored part time doctor crap really gets me down.

Weetabixandshreddies

*If you’re in London sign up to gp at hand - much quicker and better and free.

Haven't there been problems with them and you have to de register from your NHS GP. What happens if you need a face to face consultation?*

They have face to face clinics. In multiple locations across London. Yes you deregister from your gp but you replace it with a surgery where you can get seen! No problems - the nhs last week released all the safety restrictions they’d put on them at launch time so I feel confident they are being thoroughly reviewed. It’s an nhs practice.

*Otherwise use a private gp. There are loads around.

And if you can't afford a private GP?*

Well then you’re stuck with our awful not fit for purpose current system and I commiserate with the OP. Wait til it gets bad enough to go to A&E (and then cause a different set of problems for our healthcare system I suppose!).

I should also say that I have great sympathy for the vast majority of GPs, most of whom are kind and hard working (no matter what 0.x fte they are!). But the system they are working in is broken and for some reason no one wants to fix it (hands off our sacred nhs!).

We take our DS to a private paediatric GP (pfb, rest of the family is nhs) and the difference is night and day. Friendly receptionists, 30min appointments, you can speak to the doctor by phone or email if it’s not “appointment worthy”, they are prompt about following tests and referrals. Even the waiting is lovely - it has a fish tank! Like doctoring from another era. But it costs.

Graphista you claim to be an ex professional in the NHS but really you are clueless.
There aren’t anywhere near enough doctors choosing to do GP training because it is relentless and stresssful and bogged down in complaints and violence and chronic underfunding means the every creeping do
More for less mantra (and I mean less money into the practice to equiptment and staff)

GP pay has gone down and down over the year despite hours and pressure sky rocketing

Things that were managed by your min lauded specialists are not almost fully dealt with by GPS so the cases are ever more challenging and complex and thus time consuming.

People consult much more often.

People are sicker with more long term conditions that are now medicalised and so require intensive input.

My GP friends who are PT all worked FT for many years before going PT do whatever reasons. If they couldn’t have gone PT they would have left is that good value?

My practice has no GPS who do five full days at the practice. They are parents,sit on the local medical board, do clinical
Specialist sessions at the hospital etc.
The days they do work are all 6am to about 9pm. With admin done on non work days.

Imagine the pressure of a different patient every ten minutes with all the complexity of modern medicine and wonder would you do it five days a week which is about 60+ hour weeks?
The pay for that about 70-80k of which about 15k goes on your indemnity against being sued. You also pay your own employee and employer pension contributions, all your own courses for continuous professional study, pay to be on the GMC register etc etc.

Dream job really. So yes great idea let’s ‘force’ them to work full time.

Stop thinking chronic undefunding and pressures are the fault of the people working in the system who are shafted as much if not more as the patients (remember they may end up as patients too).

Wow I feel very lucky. If you call our surgery feeling poorly and they can't see you that day the GP will call you. I had to have a non-urgent F2F appointment for something recently and insisted it had to be a female doctor and still only had to wait 3 weeks I think. DD has been seen same day every time I've rung them since she was born and that's two surgeries because we moved. Can't fault NHS here. I hope you can sort - horrid to have to wait that long.

As some have pointed out a 3 day gp job is the same face to face hours as a full time job. Certainly 37 hours a week with many more at home. There are no lunch breaks.
Yet you want your gps to work 5 12-14 hour days. But would you really want to be that last patient if the week when they are on their knees?
And for those comparing to previous generations I can tell you the job is very much harder and more complex than it ever was. If it was as cushy and well paid as done thibk then surely one in four gp posts wouldn’t remain unfilled?

Brimstonenotfire you are spot on.

Pretty much just children and the unemployed get appointments at ours. My dh is 2yrs late for a med review they hassle him via text and yet when he rings up they can never give an appointment. They failed their inspection recently and are due a repeat soon. We have one female part time gp then random locum doctors funnily enough they are all male. The nurses all seem to need the gp to sign off on prescriptions.

SeaViewBliss speaks the truth.

It’s easy to lash out in frustration at your surgery, but most people do not truly consider the problems that surgeries face.

I really do appreciate how hard GPs work, how stressful the job is, how hard everyone in the NHS works. I can appreciate all of that but still explain how difficult and unsafe that system can be for patients.

If you are lucky enough to rarely need to see a dr (this used to be me and still applies, thankfully, to my husband and children) then possibly the inconvenience of getting an appointment is maybe more bearable. If you don't need routine appointments but a very occasional urgent appointment then it's no great shakes. You can ring early on the day, or failing that we have a good extended hours hub open evenings and weekends, a good OOH service and a couple of walk in centres. All great if you get a one off acute illness.

God forbid though you develop a chronic long term condition that needs lots of monitoring and need routine appointments. I am trying my best to keep working. I need to for my own well being as well as for financial reasons. Over the past 18 months I have been to the hospital at least once a week and often more for consultant appointments, CT and ultra sound scans, physio, podiatry, hand therapy, hydrotherapy, different specialist appointments to treat haematological or hepatic drs to treat the side effects of my medication. The NHS is doing it's best for me but it is so so difficult to keep working with this level of appointments.

Now also add into that taking days of constant phoning to get a GP appointment or, has recently happened, routine blood tests showed a problem. Receptionist phoned me the day after the test saying the dr needs to see me. Earliest appointment 3 weeks later, no choice of day or time so I had to arrange more time off work.

Go in to the GP, who I've never seen before, and she wants me to fill her in on my condition. She's very worried about my results so I ask her what they are. She tells me and I assure her that yes they are slightly raised for me (very abnormal for a normal person) but not as bad as they have been. Not once does she look up my results herself but expects me to regale her with 18 months worth of results. I then tell her what the specialists have said to do and how to manage it, so she does that.

What was the point then in me waiting 3 weeks and taking time off work? Give me the ability to manage my condition or arrange to do telephone appointments for things like this. But more than anything, acknowledge how very difficult it is for people having to regularly access the NHS whilst also having to work.

Makes me feel lucky. We get same day appointments in our busy south east surgery.

It’s easy to lash out in frustration at your surgery, but most people do not truly consider the problems that surgeries face.

I think a lot of people do understand but it's very difficult to sympathise when you yourself are in a dire situation. When you don't know where your health is leading, how incapacitated you will end up, if you are going to lose your job, your home, maybe your relationship because of this illness. When everyday you are in constant, unremitting pain. When the medication that you take makes you feel worse than the illness.

Then it's very difficult to appreciate the pressure that the surgery is under. All you see is that you are being left to struggle on because you just cannot get to see anyone.

You know if it is so bad make more medications available to buy OTC. Possibly with a pharmacist consultation. But if you continue to insist that GPs are the gatekeepers you can't also complain that patients need to see them. What are we supposed to do?

That's dreadful OP, but no it's not the same everywhere. I live in a small rural town and can get a same day appointment if I call at 8.30 (they keep some open just for this). The practice also recently employed two 'nurse practitioners' who can deal with many patients who don't actually need a doctor, and that works well. I agree that it seems many GPs now are only part time.
Re private GP etc - we have health insurance through DH's job, and one thing they offer is phone or video consultations with a doctor. Haven't used it but seems like a good idea.

called my diabetes was not caused by lifestyle or poor choices. It was caused by genetics and other illnesses.

Exactly what lifestyle choice led to My family members having dementia?

Though its ok to tell me my limbs are going to drop off and I'm going to die because I must be eating crap it's not ok to tell the person who smokes 50 a day and has lung cancer they've caused their cancer.

(I'm not saying it's ok in either case just it doesn't happen)

I don’t blame anyone for their illnesses and there is a huge genetic element BUT it is a sad truth that most type 2 diabetes is partly lifestyle related and not helped by current appalling eating advice!

Regarding MPs, mine and the AM are currently fighting to try and keep several surgeries in my county open. Now the average travel time to see a GP in my county is thirty minutes.

There are reasons why GPs aren't attracted to my area, not least is lack of secondary care and social services can take, literally, years to assess, likewise you can expect to wait over a year to be seen at outpatients, though increasingly that must be in another county where you're at the bottom of the list as "out of area".

No one believes you if you're on your own now. You're assumed to be trying it on. I was abused by my family, yet when in hospital I was told by a HCP to phone them, make amends and go back to them because it can't have been as bad as I "imagined". Despite me saying not to, they discussed me with a family member who rang because "they sound lovely". Yes I complained. But the fact remains that all they were interested in was my bed, not my welfare. My friend was asked to care for her landlord who had a heart attack and was sent home to wait for a bed - sound reasonable? She had terminal cancer and couldn't care for herself never mind him, but was told it was just for a few days. A month later she found him dead.

That's not everyone at all. My GP and consultant were appalled that I was told to do that and are supportive but there are no services to help because my parents weren't prosecuted and I've no money to pay for help.

called the course I was on, every diabetes person I've seen has gone straight to blaming me. I no longer see anyone about it because of the prejudice.

Type 2 runs in both parents families and has for at least two generations.

Type 1 you get help. Type 2 you get blame, which if you are the sort to comfort eat means you do so even more and eating is not the only cause, it's a combination of factors and should be treated as such.

My diabetes is in remission but not through cutting out carbs or sugar (which I was told to do). But by making small changes. Despite achieving that in under twelve months I'm not allowed to talk to the local diabetes type 2 group because I've not followed their advice or diet.

My current surgery won't give any appointments except in special circumstances (of which I am one - very complex so seeing same GP every week or so much better than randoms which can take over an hour) except on the day. This week I had the misfortune of a nasty collapse in the street and would only consent to going to GP after not recovering 100% (I've a phobia of hospitals) where I was told to take a seat and seen 30 minutes later by which time I'd sodding recovered. I apologised and contacted patient services to apologise.

The reply I got said I didn't waste anyone's time and they'd rather do ecg etc at surgery fast than make me wait hours in a&e and I was definitely not wasting anyone's time but I felt a fool!

Well the official diabetes 2 advice I have seen it utter bollocks and based on outdated research so I wouldn’t beat yourself up!

But if yours is in remission that is amazing and doesn’t it therefore show how much is lifestyle related?

I’m not blaming here BTW!