To be fucked off with the doctors situation

[StopFancyingPeople]

I’m so sick of the fight to get a doctors appointment. It never used to be so difficult and now it’s near on impossible.

I rang at 8am on Monday like you’re meant to. Automated message .... press 1 for appointments ... I press 1. I then get a long automated lecture about Coronovirus and then get told to press 1 again if I still want an appointment and have no symptoms of CV. I press 1. Automated message telling me the lines are very busy and press 1 for a call back. I press 1 and head off to work. They ring back at 9:30 when I’m upto my eyes in it at work and can’t answer the phone.

I try again Tuesday. Same kerfuffle with the automated messages. I request a call back and head off to work. Get a call back at 11am by which point there are no appointments left.

I try again yesterday. Same old shit. No appointments left by the time they ring me back. I lost my shit a little as I feel so Ill. I need to see a fucking doctor. It shouldn’t be this difficult!!! They sympathise and offer me an appointment ... for the end of March!!!!

I’m barely functioning. I’m incredibly fatigued, constant headache, nausea, anxious mess and not sleeping. Yesterday I could barely stay awake whilst driving home. Last night I went to bed do fucking tired that I woke up in a pool of my own piss. I didn’t even wake up for a wee. 2nd night in a row that I’ve wet the bed.

AIBU to call dr again today, make up some shit just to get an emergency same day appointment?! I don’t even feel that I should need to make shit up, I think I genuinely need to see a Dr today.

The annoying thing is, when you do by some miracle of god get to see a GP they then decide you need a blood test. Now god forbid the GP do this test there and then ... noooo .... you’ll have to make another appointment for a nurse to do it and good luck getting that within the next month or so.

It’s ridiculous. The system is fucking failing.

Also, as a nurse I see this from other people’s points of view too. A woman made up an excuse to come to my clinic last week. When she got there she asked me to diagnose something she had as she’d been trying to get a dr appointment for 3 weeks and has all the ducking symptoms of cancer. I could not help her, she needed to see a GP 3 weeks ago.

01TheOrigBrave -
It's out of my area I live but they are aware that I moved bit further away think it's 6 miles away but theyb said I can stay whith them, I'm pleased about as like I said have been with them going on 30years now. Last few weeks is first time I had to see GP since last year.
It's that time via bus route in traffic, it's not far in a car though maybe 20 mins more depending on traffic but no where to park,
Think that surgery's were not taking new people if lived out of catchment area or if existing patients had not been seen for some.
If I have had to go for blood test I go to the hospital near my GP not in the area where I live. Think it came under the NHS choose and book system thing.

We'd be better off getting rid of GPs as a tier. Bring in a triage system and then refer straight to a specialist. Waste of time and effort and training.

@jazz are you really saying you think GPS aren’t necessary? I’m honestly shocked that people undervalue what we do to that extent. You realise perhaps only 10-20% of what we see actually needs a referral and we provide a very important and valuable part of the nhs.

GPs are effectively privatised - they are businesses contracted to the nhs. Like any other private business in ‘naice’ areas like mine they thrive, in more challenging areas they struggle. It’s a real failing of nhs management imho.

Purplewithred I have to ask why you think this is the case ? why would a GP practice struggle in a poorer socio-economic area ?

Why would you refer patients straight to a specialist? For a cough, rash, virus?

My gp is gr8 always get in. If want a routine appointment could get one Monday

madcatladyforever

I rang my new doctors to ask about registration, without a lie I had to listen to a 10 fucking minute spiel about their new online service. I absolutely lost my shit and was pretty rude to the receptionist when I got through, I wasn't proud of myself but I have half an hour for lunch in an extremely high pressure NHS job and I don't need my entire lunch break being taken up with one phone call.
It's disgusting.

That's right madcatladyforver take it out on the receptionist, who are you usually paid a pittance. The only thing disgusting is your behaviour!

I work in a gp's and the big problem is people's expectations are too high and they are very demanding!!

What? All the people?

I struggle to believe that. Most of us just want to be able to make an appointment, of the standard sort for a date within the next fortnight.

I’ve given up on getting treatment on the NHS for asthma exacerbations at all now. They really can’t wait when they start. So for two years now I pay for private consultations and prescriptions and drop the printout in at the NHS surgery for my records (where they often misfile them).

I am lucky I can afford to pay.

Another 'part time Gp' on 40 hours/week for 45 k. By the time I was 35 I had worked more hours than many full timers will work in a life time thanks to my 72 hour 'basic' weeks and 102 hour on call weeks as a junior doctor... I don't think I owe any one anything. And I work part time because I was actively suicidal working full time. Like some of my colleagues. Unlike them i reduced my hours rather than killing myself. Clearly both I, by reducing my hours and those that have killed themselves were selfishly adding to the appointments crisis... I am no longer suicidal. I just suffer from crippling anxiety instead, and wish my working life away on a daily basis. Despite this I am compassionate, dedicated and give everything I have to my patients. I'm sorry that will never be enough....

Sorry, that should have been everything I have kept to give in the second to last line.

Some people are demanding and unreasonable but many are not!
It's the bad ones that make it worse for the ones that are polite and just want help and reassurance!

Sod it. Left to give. I can also clearly no longer type coherently....

@Didiplanthis no patient or taxpayer wants a primary care system that works by pushing HCPs to the brink.

There must be a solution within the wit of humans that is humane to GPs and responsive to the populace?

@Didiplanthis

It sounds awful.

Being a GP or Doctor in a hospital sounds horrendous. Something will have to change but I can't see it happening under this government.
My friends daughter is training to be one. I don't envy her at all not to mention the debt she will have when she qualifies.
My sons g/f is a nurse : she said this is bad enough!

Wtf has Blair got to do with this? He stopped being prime minister ages ago.

And doctors should be highly paid. They have incredibly complex and stressful jobs.

Imagine the responsibility of whether a person lives or dies. Why not just pay them the minimum wage or on a zero hours contact? That’ll stop these lazy doctors going part time won’t it?

Our GP surgery is really good. Morning appointments are walk-in & wait. Afternoon appointments can be booked. The nurses have walk-in sessions for an hour every morning & afternoon. There is a Saturday morning surgery. There is also a pharmacy so patients pick up meds on the way out.

Wtf has Blair got to do with this? He stopped being prime minister ages ago.

Not sure. Who brought in fundholding? That is a very obvious car crash but I thought it was a Tory policy.

Wtf has Blair got to do with this? He stopped being prime minister ages ago.

He renegotiated the GP contracts. How quickly people forget.

I sympathise OP but it sounds like you need a holiday. On the one hand you're not sleeping, but on the other you're not waking up to go to the loo. Which is it?

Genuine question, not being goady, what do you want a GP to do?

Prescribe anti depressants, drugs for anxiety...send you to therapy that will have a wait list. If it is lifestyle related they cant change that.

If you have something serious they refer you on...triage.........or you need a blood test - do they do that....nope...that's another appointment with a nurse etc..

rash .....Google will give you as good an idea as a GP quite frankly ......

I think with the development of AI you could photograph your rash and then be sent to a department that could actually do something if necessary or (as in many cases) told to go away - it's viral and will clear up by itself.

I'm saying that could be taken out for a greater benefit and there could be a satisfactory work around, but their medical training could be put to better use.

My GP (one of many in the local practice) will probably have no specialist knowledge of the menopause - but I will have to make do with him, when I would rather speak to a specialist, who has an in depth knowledge.

I sympathise OP but it sounds like you need a holiday. On the one hand you're not sleeping, but on the other you're not waking up to go to the loo. Which is it?

Genuine question, not being goady, what do you want a GP to do?

Are you serious? There are some physical ailments that clearly need excluding.

The job it should be and the job I want to be doing is a privilege and a vocation. I love what it should be, and I try to do it as it should be done. Despite everything I love the essence of what it is. I'm on no power trip, my 'buzz' is from knowing I have done everything I can do to make someone feel better. To those that think the GP tier should be phased out - sometimes the most impact I can have in a day is to have held the hand of a lonely scared elderly person while they talked. They may not have had ANY actual physical contact/touch with another person in months. But that touch re connects them as a person and makes them feel valued. Or giving someone a safe space to cry because they have finally admitted they cant cope with their shitty life anymore. To me that is every bit as important as the other more obvious stuff. Take away general practice and many unseen, unquantified layers of the job will have no place to go.

You aren't being at all unreasonable (and I say this as evil GP reception/admin staff). I dread the day we get a new fangled phone system fitted in our surgery - think they'll be a mutiny!
The way it works here for on the day appointments is that people try to phone up in the morning, we ask them to give us an idea of what the problem is and it will either go on the GP's triage list or, if it sounds straightforward, we'll book them straight in with a nurse prescriber, ask them to bring in a urine sample for dipping/sending off in cases of a potential UTI for example. This way EVERYONE gets dealt with and they don't disappear off that list until they have been.

It means the GP is snowed under and us admin staff convey an awful lot of messages back and forth but it seems to work really well. We struggle with routine appointments but there is a degree of flexibility because we're well aware of that. If the doctor thinks someone needs seeing but it can wait a few days or until the following week, they'll authorise us to book them into a slot. They might also decide to phone the patient, gather a bit more information and book them in for further investigation before seeing them with the results.

A system like this is highly dependent on a really good working relationship between clinicians and support staff, a lot of local knowledge (small town) and, dare I say it, employing people with more than half a brain on the wages we get paid.

Does your practice have telephone slots or a GP triage system?

Would I do a blood test if it didnt take up another appointment time - yes of course I would. But there are not enough appointments already !

And btw where I work anyone can book a phone appt and I will fit in as many extras as I feel need to be seen...