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.

YANBU. Make and emergency appt for those symptoms.

Our surgery starts taking on the day appts at 8:30am each day. This is right when the school doors open! If you are not on the phone at the same time, then you miss the appts for that day. It’s an awful system, so frustrating.

@Didiplanthis the problem with that is, many of us have no idea who our GPs are - you to me are as faceless as anyone else. I have lived in my location for over 20 years and have just looked at my local surgery list - I have no idea who any of the docttors listed are. Most of them work across several locations on random days. None of them work 5 days a week.

If I am having a mental health crisis, why would I want to go and speak to any of them? what benefit would there be over speaking to anyone else, other than a prescription at the end of 10 minutes? I have to come to you as a first point of contact - I don't want to. You aren't really necessary if I know what my issue is...you would be more use as a specialist / counsellor - as a GP you in fact become something of a hurdle to be navigated.

It is crazy. It is a 4-5 week wait for an appointment at mine but they are good on the day for emergencies however you could be trying to get through for over 30 mins. Im a teacher so find it hard to get appts out of school time. I've just been diagnosed with a severe b12 deficiency with extremely low levels they were shocked I was still going and your symptoms sound similar to what I have had or a vit d deficiency.

I hate it so much. Redial about 1000 times at 8am..might get through by half past if you're lucky. Spend 10 minutes listening to the automated crap telling you how busy they are. Explain to the receptionist what's wrong with you. Then the waiting game begins. A doctor could ring back at any time, doesnt matter how inconvenient. I have two jobs, one where I'm.not allowed.my phone on the shop floor and one in an office where I do have my phone but I don't have any privacy. Its a hideous stressful business waiting for and taking the call. Then invariably the doctor will say 'i think we better take a look at you, can you come down now?'. And I generally think NO!!! I can't actually just drop everything and come.straight down. If I'd have been able to organise my day around an appointment it would be so much easier. The whole system is stacked against working people. I just put off ringing and going through the stress of it. Hope you get sorted soon OP

Jazz - I get that I really do but I have many people who if they are having a mental health crisis WILL know who I am and will want to see me, and dont want to see an unknown counsellor who will palm them off with a leaflet . But I work in a small rural community so I get it is probably very different. The trouble is there is NO consistency anywhere. Dont get me wrong I know how shit it is on the other side...I'm often on that side too with 3 SEN kids...

Fortunately where I live it is dead easy to get doctor's appointments. Usually the same day or next day. Less fortunately we pay £61 for each appointment. It's a bit downside.

What JavaQ said.

Our surgery exactly the same, gives zero fux about young children as well.

They don’t give appointments on the day, they are saved for weeks later as ‘routine appointments’, what’s the point in that? If you need to see a GP on the day you were referred to a ‘sit and wait’ clinic where you would have to wait forup to 2 hours in agony (think UTI), they have now changed the name to ‘urgent care’ but the process is the same. How the hell is that urgent?

Oof the rows I’ve had with the receptionists, I’m surprised I haven’t been banned.

YANBU OP. But, as a nurse, if you need to see someone - is there a walk in clinic at your hospital?

My GP practice is great when you finally get to see someone. But I live in a small city where new building has doubled the population in 10 years without any more GP surgeries or facilities and with many retirement properties leading to a more dependant, ageing community.

If I feel truly unwell now I present to A&E rather than my GP. I have the advantage of being able to check when A&E is quiet first. Obviously most don't.

It ISN'T the surgeries fault. It's entirely the governments fault. A growing population, a growing elderly population etc needs further services. More GPs. More walk in clinics. Until we get more funding - and on a very significant level - the NHS is fucked in general.

Dr saw me 30 mins later and gave me a bollocking for not coming in sooner as i had a severe chest infection, when i showed him that i had tried 61 times that morning and 25 the day before so had come in he reeled off an email to reception to express his displeasure. Sadly still no better.....

I wish everybody had to spend a month as a GP receptionist to stop this utter bullshit rhetoric. Who do you think makes staffing decisions? Who could hire more receptionists, if they chose to? Hint: it's not the receptionists on minimum wage.

Who also, btw, is forced to ask you what's wrong with you by their bosses (99% of the time the partner GPs) - they're not doing it for their own perverse gratification.

Honestly.

Ho to surgery and be parked at 08.05 and outside front door by 8.07 is the way to get an apt.

TBF ours aren't bad, esp the partners but I'd only see the salaried peeps if I needed anti-biotics but I can get those from the np at the minor injuries unit.

But you know they have time to write a prescription every 56 days for 100mcg levothyroxine that hasn't changed for 30 years and back then it was a non nonsense scrip annually for 365 tablets that are as cheap as chips.

Bit hey, their time is really really important and it's indisputable. Fuck the scummy old patient who works 50+ hours pw and is taxed until the pips queak. Who they welcome to the consultation. 35 yr old salaried dr from South Asia "hello OhThe, I am Dr Quack". If you, young lady deserve a title so do I Miss.

The partners don't do it; why do the salaried drs. At least the partners m and f and my age, nearly 60? Know their stuff and aren't patronising.

@CantSayJack - a 2 hour wait is absolutely "emergency" care.

Attend at A&E with something far more serious than a UTI, and you could still be waiting 24 hours plus on a trolley.

What do you expect? To be able to see a GP on demand? Within what time scale? 20 mins? 1 hour? Do the maths, demand on the NHS so severely outweighs the demand you are at the extremely blessed end of the wedge if your surgery can offer you a same day emergency consultation.

It's not right. It's shit. But it's reality.

Hmmm. I was a partner for 15 years. And am now salaried as I didn't want to be a partner any more. Didnt know I had deskilled and become incompetent in medicine over one weekend by not wanting to run a business anymore ??? I am FAR more experienced than some of the partners... and last time l checked I was from south london...

I work in healthcare. I now go and see a private GP as there are no NHS appts available near me. And no walk in centre that doesn't take about 6hours to be seen in. They don't take care of their own around here that's for sure. I'm sure that the receptionists at my NHS GP surgery have me down as a 'difficult patient', but it is so frustrating. I feel your pain OP, I really do.

@CoffeeRunner a 2 hour wait when you’ve got blood in your urine and have been up all night in agony, the 2 hour wait being in late afternoon so actually if I had gone to A&E in the morning I would’ve got seen quicker.
You don’t know the full details so I’d pipe down. I’m allowed an opinion and was responding to OP.

@OhTheRoses you do understand that the "salariedpeeps" have the same roughly 12 year training to become a qualified GP as the partners do?

They just haven't signed up to the profit share from the business side of things...… Their qualifications don't differ at all.

Yep I do coffeerunner but at my practice they aren't as experienced, they aren't as good and they are zillions more arrogant. Appreciate it isn't like that at every practice but it is at mine x

@CantSayJack a 2 hour wait for a UTI is completely and utterly reasonable. Unless you wish to pay for private treatment you are the one who needs to “pipe down”.

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

Okey dokey. When you go to the GP with - say - abdominal pain, the cause could be:
Gastrointestinal
Gynaecological
Obstetric
Urological
Hepatic
Neurological
Rheumatogical
Musculoskeletal
Psychological
Oncological
Haematological
Respiratory (referred pain)
Cardiological (referred pain)
Microbiological
Endocrine
..and probably a few others I have forgotten too.

But yes, any fool, with 5 minutes on Google can work out which is which

I have been an A&E doctor and an Intensivist, both specialities that get far more respect than GPs. General Practice is 100 times harder: you are seeing people right at the start of an illness, and you have to pick out the 1% with something really serious from the 99% with something minor or self-limiting. That's fucking hard. There is no symptom so trivial it can't be something serious or unusual. Blocked nostril? Could be a nasopharyngeal cancer. Skin a bit red and itchy? Sure, it's probably eczema, but it could be lymphoma. And you have to hold all the rare and worrying diagnoses in your mind, all the time. And deal with patients' bereavements/safeguarding issues/sexual assaults/gambling debts/addictions/homelessness. But sure, Google will sort that for you. Google will sort out my patient who's dying of a glioblastoma and is terrified about leaving his kids. Google will notice that the interaction between a teenage girl and her dad is a bit weird, and work out that she's being sexually abused. Google will support my patient who was anally raped with a baseball bat.

GPs do 90% of healthcare in the UK for 8% of the NHS budget. There is a wealth of evidence from all over the world that countries with strong primary care have better health outcomes than countries where people just see specialists. But ignorant attitudes like yours mean the profession is dying because young doctors don't want the grief and the disrespect. And I don't blame them.

@OhTheRoses please be assured. ANY GP has been through at the very very least, 5 years at uni, 3 years as a hospital junior Dr & then a year as a GP trainee. I do understand why you may not have the same level of confidence in an unfamiliar GP but they are by no means less qualified.

YANBU. Make and emergency appt for those symptoms.

Make an emergency appointment with who? and how?
You cant even get an emergency appointment at many GPs. That is the reality.

coffeerunner I fully understand they are very well qualified. Well qualified, however, doesn't necessarily extrapolate to very good professional practitioner. I think you miss the point.

Sorry, rolling on the floor laughing at coffeerunner thinking a mere non medical pleb has no comprehension of how long it takes to qualify as a a Dr. Arrogance sans humility or what

*@CoffeeRunner a 2 hour wait for a UTI is completely and utterly reasonable. Unless you wish to pay for private treatment you are the one who needs to “pipe down”
Says the one who goes to A&E for a GP appointment when unwell
You do realise A&E stands for Accident & EMERGENCY?

Blood tests at my local are based on walk in where you can wait over 2hrs or get an appointment and wait 4 weeks for that slot.

The problems I have seen when I walked in to get a blodo test is that the nurses doing them stood about chatting inbetween every single person they saw. It was so infuriating to watch, they should be taking a scheduled break if they needed it and just get on and do person after person to clear the queue. There were 6 nurses at the time I went, even if it took 10mins to do one person (bloods and paperwork) then one nurse should get through 6 people in an hour, 6 nurses should get through 36 people in an hour. In the one hour I was waiting only 6 people in total had their bloods taken. FML. I ended up leaving because I had to go back to work. I attempted the next day but same thing and I just gave up.

I am also very cynical of doctors treatment. I have reoccuring tonsilitus. I know well enough when its viral or bacterial. Pre xmas I came down with tonsilitus, I knew it was bacterial and needed antibiotics because without it the recovery is long and you risk getting pits in your tonsils resulting in tonsil stones - something I wanted to avoid. I got an appointment, saw the doctor who said it was viral - despite my history and symptoms he would not give antibiotics. Then everything was shut for xmas, tonsilitus took hold and I just figured I wold ride it out. Unlucky this time though because I wasn't getting better, by the time I got an appointment my tonsilitus had triggered larynigitus. Finally I got antibiotics but it was too late, I got throgh the course and still not getting better because another throart infection took hold. I was relunctantly put back on antibiotics. 20 days of feeling absolutely shit and 2 courses of antibiotics back to back - easily could of be avoided but the doctor wouldn't listen. Because of how severe it was I now have pits in my tonsils and get tonsil stones.

On another occassion I saw a male doctor who told me that the cripppling short stabbing pain I was feeling in the area by my ovaries and bleeding for 2 weeks with a week break then another 2 weeks of bleeding was down to my pill not settling. I had to insist very hard that the pain and bleeding was not normal, having been on the pill I know whats normal and what isn't but he was adamant it was just spotting. I had to really insist hard it was normal and he finally agreed to send me for a scan - turns out I have 3 fibroids!!!! How the hell would I have known this if he refused a scan, at least I now know and can adjust my diet to help stop them from growing further.

So I am not exactly a fan of doctors as my experience hasn't been great. The doctors I saw are different as with our practice you are assigned whoever has appointment available.

I find my docs pretty good and normally get app the same day, even if no 30 in the que!
I have had post menopasal depression , chemical I add , told them, unless things improve I will go private , 9 mths later and hsrdky any improvement tho, we see with new antidepressants.
Rudeness needs not apply to medical staff tho