To GP should be more helpful?

[lucylockett27]

I need life insurance to secure a mortgage. A long story cut short the house I am buying is abroad but I am from the UK and my GP aid in the UK. Whete I am buying you have 30 days of to complete f you don’t you loose your deposit. Where I am buying, I now know (I didn’t at the start) life insurance is mandatory. I have a couple of health conditions so the insurance company has referred this for GP notes. The GP is saying they need 6 weeks to do this. I have begged with them and explained that if they take that long we will loose the deposit but I am getting nowhere. I think they are being unreasonable, any advice on how I can speed the process up- pretty desperate at the moment !

Could you go to a private GP? I think the NHS is currently so overwhelmed that this kind of bureaucratic service that they used to provide is just falling by the wayside.

I think GP's are more helpful. Just not to people wanting forms etc done. They are snowed under with patients.

I think you should have been more prepared. Paying the deposit without making sure you had everything in place was stupid, and it isn’t the GP’s fault.

Do you know how many requests for letters and medical records a surgery gets each week? At the albeit large surgery I work at, it’s generally over 300. In order to get them finished quickly, we would have to take most of our reception staff away from call-handling to process them. And then patients would complain about not being able to get through to us on the phone.

Maybe he is too busy seeing actual patients. People with illnesses who have already had to wait maybe a couple of weeks to actually get an appointment with the doctor in the first place.

I'm sorry to hear that you have had so much trouble obtaining the relevant information so you can buy a property.
It's so difficult trying to navigate through the many things/hoops to jump just to move house!
There must have been so many people in your position in the past, perhaps you could search some online forums and get an alternative way round this?
Sorry I could not be of any help.

I would look in to calling a private hospital locally and see if they have a GP that would be willing to write a letter on your conditions then and there.

Thanks I will look into the private GP options. We honestly did do all the tease arch on what was needed before paying the deposit. This was never mentioned. Apparently it is a new thing. We appreciate how overwhelmed GPs are but I still think their timescale is unreasonable.

This isn’t an NHS service. So, unfortunately for you, it is way down the GP’s priorities. It’s one of those things that they will get to when they have time that isn’t needed for clinical work and what they are commissioned to do. Tbh given the stress primary care is under, 6 weeks sounds very reasonable to me.

If you knew how many forms GPs have to process each week you wouldn't think 6 weeks was unreasonable. It has to be done outside of times that they are seeing patients. So through their lunch break (which is already non existent due to visits, signing prescriptions, reading and acting on hospital letters and results, calling patients) or after they finish seeing patients in the evening. Add to this the severe lack of GPs we have at the moment and all the meetings the CCG require them to attend I think 6 weeks is very reasonable.

I don't think your GP is unreasonable for needing 6 weeks, and I also dont think you did very good research to not know something so important before putting a large amount of money down.

Can you not take out a life insurance policy which doesn't require you to provide information on these conditions? Itll likely cost more but probably not as much as your home deposit.

Did you ask for your notes via data protection? I asked for mine today and told I would get them by the end of the week, I just needed to take in ID and fill in form.

I don't know if that varies by practice (small Scottish village) or because it is admin rather than needing GP input.

Their timescale isn’t unreasonable. This isn’t their priority, but yours. You shouldn’t have paid the deposit before knowing you had the right paperwork.

YABU

Are you paying for this nonmedically necessary service that’s taking your GP away from treating patients? I bloody well hope so! And why don’t you have a GP in the country where you’re buying a house? If you’re living there then you should!

It was your responsibility to know all the requirements before putting money down. Your research clearly wasn’t thorough enough. That’s not the fault or problem of your GP.

Did you ask for your notes via data protection? I asked for mine today and told I would get them by the end of the week, I just needed to take in ID and fill in form

Legally, we have 30 days to get people their records. And if we need to, we can take longer than that as long as we inform the patient in writing.

Definitely not a new thing, we both needed life insurance to secure our mortgage and that was 6 years ago (Scotland).

YABVU to expect a GP to prioritise your paperwork over patients. Reminds me of a phrase a colleague of mine often uses - “failure to prepare on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”

I think it’s good timescale
They could ask that you pay for this kind of thing, it would be fairer.