To move GP

[ashvivienne]

Had DD1 (21) at the GP this morning had to drive her myself as her hands were shaking, could barely walk the length of herself without getting out of breath and in 24 hours had slept for over 15. Had to wait over 30 minutes past appointment time to be seen to then be seen and done and told just congestion in 5 minutes.
Took her to the walk in this afternoon as I was more concerned to be told she’s got tonsillitis and a serious chest infection and sent away with prescriptions for antibiotics.
We are constantly waiting 30 minutes plus after appointment time to be seen and we’ve complained about it before (waited an hour to have newborn seen to to be told we hadn’t been checked in properly with the receptionist)

Yanbu I hope your daughters ok!
Unfortunately our GPS are overwhelmed, but personally I wouldn’t feel able to trust a diagnosis from them in the future given what happened to your daughter today.

To be fair, they more or less said the same thing. One believes in antibiotics, the other doesn't. You'll find that the latter was probably wrong to prescribe antibiotics, as it should only be so if the infection is bacterial, which unless he tested her for, he wouldn't have known.

You are being extremely unreasonable to complain about the GP running late.

Appointment slots are nominally 10 minutes. Some patients take less time than that, others take far more. Our surgeries are scheduled with the hope that we’ll have enough quicker consultations to balance out the longer ones.

But sometimes, on a difficult day, every single patient ends up needing 20-25 minutes. I will be running extremely late by the end of that session, but it would be utterly dangerous to do otherwise.

I prioritise patient safety over punctuality and I will not apologise for that.

(For some of my frailest patients, it takes half the consultation time for them to simply get into the room)

Do you mean another GP in the same practise or a different practise?

If the latter, you might not find it easy. In total exasperation with my GP surgery I phoned the other one in my town to enquire about moving to them. They explained that they would only accept new patients if they were new to the town, patients from the other health centre would not be accepted under any circumstances. I don’t know if this is a common policy - I suspect that perhaps in my case they won’t do it because it would open the floodgates for a mass exodus of disgruntled patients from my GP.

I hope your daughter feels better soon.

To be fair, they more or less said the same thing
Congestion (whatever that is supposed to mean) and a serious chest infection are not the same thing.

A serious chest infection (by that I would infer pneumonia or severe bronchitis) requires antibiotics on spec, with suitable follow-up. It is not wrong to prescribe antibiotics in this circumstance for someone who is very ill.

Your daughter is 21, surely she can decide for herself if she wants to change GP?