How long can you have something undiagnosed before it's negligence?

[Jonette]

Just wondering how much leeway medical professionals have?
As in if you've had something for years, when is anyone going to ever ask the question of the doctor(s) 'Eh, why didn't you notice that?'

No, I'm not complaining about my GP as I don't appear to have one in particular. There are 3 in my practice, all of which I've seen for various ailments over 2 years. I don't know whether one in particular is overseeing my healthcare.

Prior to this, I've moved counties/towns/countries so I've had different experiences with GPs.

If I wanted to whine, believe me, I could whine specifically. As I said, this was a general post.

Agree with op that the care often seems a bit lacking. Gps often seem to get you out of the door quickly and are reluctant to spend any time.
They should have a list of things in mind and ask the right questions, as well as following up afterwards. It does seem as though the onus is on the patient to know what's going on and tell the doctor, or keep hassling them. Some Gps are great of course. Others are demoralised /overworked /fed up. I think it largely depends on pot luck.

Given that most of you seem to think GPs are useless, you’ll be glad to learn that they won’t be around for much longer. It is now officially a shortage occupation. Like many of my GP colleagues, I’m counting the days till I can retire, and it’s highly unlikely I’ll be replaced. You’ll miss us when we’ve gone.

And to answer your question OP, it depends entirely on the condition. If someone presents with post menopausal bleeding, and the doctor doesn’t take steps to rule out endometrial cancer, then they are immediately negligent. However, if someone attends sporadically with varying vague symptoms which don’t point to anything in particular, then it can reasonably take a very long time to get to the bottom of it.

And don’t get me started of poor historians.
I have had a patient sit down and announce that she wasn’t going to give me any “clues”, and she sat there in silence waiting for me to diagnose her!!

Drs can't read minds nor guess something is wrong but if you have been to the drs on several occasions with what seem like random symptoms there's a reasonable expectation that the gp will see a pattern if there's a specific Illness or condition but you do need to go to the dr and tell them the symptoms. Anyone of us could have something seriously wrong but my dr for sure wouldn't know because I avoid it whenever possible

Mintychoc,

I've never heard of the 'no spoilers' approach. Did she give you a score out of ten depending on how close you got to what she thought was wrong?

What are your plans after escaping?

You've people avoiding primary care as it's shit. It won't be much loss, since they don't seem to do much in the first place.

@Jonette

GP = general practitioner, a jack of all trades. They are there to field the mundane, and onward refer to a specialist in need.

"Dr, Dr I have a headache"
That's a symptom of just about everything from eye strain to a tumour to the common cold

"Dr, Dr I'm tired"
lack of sleep/heart problems/poor diet and mineral deficiencies

Ye, so your GP SHOULD be able to narrow down the causes.... That's not for patients to do. Otherwise you google it, wait until symptoms are bad enough and go through A&E. In fairness, that's probably going to be quicker than getting a GP appointment. And costlier all round.

Waah waah waah

Well, this has been a depressing read. Who’d be a doctor?

Otherwise you google it, wait until symptoms are bad enough and go through A&E. In fairness, that's probably going to be quicker than getting a GP appointment. And costlier all round.

More than 50% of A&E attendances are sent home with a care sheet and told to see their GP in need.

GPs are not a jack of all trades, they are a specialist/consultant in primary care. The system is not designed for them to be a specialist in every condition and it would be bonkers to expect them to be. Some make mistakes as I know to my families cost.

In my experience, the vast majority of patients 3are not avoiding primate care 'as it's shit', nor are they there to 'field the mundane'. If you've not seen how GPs and ANPs are part of the management of complex and chronic conditions then you shouldn't presume that absence of knowledge is knowledge of absence.

Hoppinggreen - have they checked your daughter for Ehlers Danlos rather than "just" hypermobility syndrome? Her injuries sound more like EDS (which I have, and my daughter has HMS).

OP you do realise the A&E is staffed mainly by doctors who have only be qualified for a year or 2, don't you?

The fact is, the human body is an immensely complicated thing, and whilst some symptoms are known to be characteristic of particular conditions, the majority of symptoms can be caused by numerous problems. Hence it can take a long time to go through the various possibilities one by one, arranging different tests and trying different treatments.

Contrary to popular belief, GPs did not go through a decade of training just to ignore and misdiagnose patients. We actually want to help. But we are constrained by financial limitations, massive restrictions on the numbers we're allowed to refer to hospital, vast amounts of admin work meaning that we can't spend as much time seeing patients as we'd like to. This has made General Practice an unpopular choice, hence the recruitment crisis. Oh and let's not forget the complaints. Complaints procedures these days are such that if a patient complains that one of the receptionists was a bit shirty with them, this involves the doctors and senior admin staff in literally hours of complaint resolution. People have no idea what their 5 minute whinge creates hours of following the complaints protocol, as defined by CQC. This is all time that could be spent seeing patients.
Every so often, the government bring in a new management structure - this is happening now in fact - and this also involves us in many many hours of meetings and bureaucracy.
OP you really have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, and sadly, like much of the population, she seem more concerned with GP bashing, telling us we're crap, and that your google search is better.
I work 14 hour days - that is my norm - as do all my colleagues. We do our best in very very difficult circumstances.
Threads like this make me wish I'd never bothered to do all those exams.

I think it massively depends on your GP and what area you live in.

I went to the GP two years ago with mid-cycle bleeding - it had happened three cycles in a row and I was starting to worry. My GP was excellent - she ordered blood tests, and booked me in with the nurse for a smear and STI test. When all those came back clear, she referred me to the hospital for a full pelvic scan. I didn't even have to ask.

Thankfully everything came back okay, I was put on traxenamic acid to control the bleeding and I've never had a problem since (unless I forget to take my tablets) - turns out I wasn't expelling blood properly after my period, leading it to come out during ovulation every month.

But the important thing is - I felt listened to. My GP was reassuring and didn't make me feel as though I was wasting her time or being silly for being worried. I was only 28 and I think a lot of GP's dismiss symptoms like that in young women because they're incredibly low-risk for cancer.

I know people in other areas who have struggled to even get blood tests for things like that, let alone smears and pelvic scans in hospital. It's really sad that people's health/chances of survival are a postcode lottery in this country.

@Mintychoc1

Given that most of you seem to think GPs are useless, you’ll be glad to learn that they won’t be around for much longer. It is now officially a shortage occupation. Like many of my GP colleagues, I’m counting the days till I can retire, and it’s highly unlikely I’ll be replaced. You’ll miss us when we’ve gone.

I wasn't a GP but retired very early partly because of attitudes expressed here.
People get short appointments because there are only so many hours in a day and, bizarrely, doctors don't want to spend all 24 of them seeing patients. Sometimes they sleep or see their own families.
So, with fewer GPs and higher patient demand, you're cramming a quart into a pint pot. Or something metric
If you demand a home visit or urgent appointments you'll generally get it. But that will eat into the time left for others.
No doctor knows everything. I know there are bad and lazy doctors as there are in all jobs.
However, it's hard enough, has a long enough training and isn't well remunerated enough for most people to go into it without generally having good motives and wanting to help.
Sadly, that urge was ground out of me. Not by my patients but by this pervasive attitude.

However, it's hard enough, has a long enough training and isn't well remunerated enough for most people to go into it without generally having good motives and wanting to help.

"...NOT to into it..."

Goddsake, LaM! Step all over your own point, why don't you?

No.
It was right the first time.
Double negatives are my enemy.

Going to have a little low-down now...

My doctors are usually great, they helped me so much with my back issues and are willing to see me on the day if I need an appointment
I'm just confused as to how someone who is neutropenic on every single blood test over a period of 8 years is missed. I do think if I had seen the same doctor every time it might have been spotted earlier. But they kept seeing mild/moderate/severe neutropenia and not putting 2 and 2 together. I nearly lost my job over it

Most of the time, the problem is not misinterpretation of symptoms but refusal to investigate. It happens to women a lot more, I think, because HCPs are too ready to ascribe symptoms to stress or mental health issues. I am lucky to have a very good GP practice where the doctors will explain WHY they have made a diagnosis or decided to wait and see, which helps a lot.

YANBU. I've had chronic kidney disease for at least the past 10 years and didn't find out about it until last April.

My nephrologist brought up on screen a graph of my kidney function and taken from various blood tests that I have had over the past 10 years and showed that my kidney function has dropped to 48% and nobody had thought to say anything until last April when I was in hospital really unwell when I was just about to give birth and they flagged that my kidney function was poor and I should follow it up. Here I am a year later with a diagnosis. If I had known years ago I might have been able to manage my condition better and might not be at the stage I'm at now.

My nan died from cancer of the bone in face years ago.
She repeatedly kept complaining for sore nose and cheek and pressure feeling.
He kept fobbing her off saying it was sinitus. After about a year she went private as wasn't happy with level of care NHS were giving.
Was too late. She was diagnosed straight away after they did tests in here but was too far gone.
They did put a complaint in and it was investigated.
NHS admitted Dr in question should have referred patient for further tests as treatment for sinitus was not working and migraines and facial pressure were not something she had ever suffered from so was highly unusual.
My grandparents did not request money but that Dr would receive further training or such.

I always get the impression (from my gp) that they hate you researching yourself and tend to think you're a hypochondriac

Yes me too. I've found that the most effective way of getting treated is to google your symptoms, work out what's probably wrong with you, and then make sure to mention those symptoms that you have that are most typical of that illness without mentioning what you think the illness is. It's the suspicion that Dr Google = raging hypochondriac. Which is really stupid - as a patient and as a parent of patients, you have to make inferences all the damn time about what you/they are suffering from, so you can decide whether to bother the GP with it.