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.

I didn’t say that @CantSayJack. I said if your complaint was too urgent to wait for a GP appointment you go to A&E. I work in A&E. I think I know what it stands for thanks.

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?

Having to wait 2 hours only is amazing service- you are really lucky.

A UTI wouldn't get you a same day appointment here- you would have to wait 14 days here minimum to see a doctor unless you happened to call for an emergency appointment on a light day (very rare) and when they had triaged everyone by phone and ranked everyone you ended up in the top 40 (40 is a guess I have no idea what number you have to be to get a same day appointment)

In reality you would be asked to drop a sample with the nurse or be told to go and see the pharmacist.

I waited 45 minutes to get through to appointments only to be told to ring back tomorrow as they all gone and they only go two weeks in advance. I told the representative I will be writing a letter of complaint and changing surgeries to the one OH is with.

@OhTheRoses. Your previous posts very clearly showed you have very little respect for “salaried peeps”. Hence the need to point out that they were every bit as qualified, experienced & knowledgable as the partners. The one & only difference is the partners have financially bought into the business.

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.

@CoffeeRunner your words, so you work in A&E and when it’s quiet you swing by to see a Doctor? Hmmmm......

@cyclingmad do tell me more about how adjusting your diet can stop fibroids from growing ...

@Largeyellowdaffodil it wasn’t a 2 hour wait though was it? Call GP at 8am, see GP at 5.30pm....
Please see NHS website, you need to see a GP if you have blood in your urine. A pharmacist would not help you and if you waited 14 days then you’d end up with a kidney infection.
Some fucking weird people on here.

Yes @CantSayJack yes. Why not? I spend most of my life dealing with other poorly people. I am the same as you. Why the he’ll shouldn’t I seek advice at less busy times? What do you think? Medical staff are super human & in addition to treating 2 million patients per hour to avoid anyone waiting ever we can also self diagnose? THIS is what is wrong with the NHS.

Has anyone / can anyone use LIVI the online GP service?

@Largeyellowdaffodil it wasn’t a 2 hour wait though was it? Call GP at 8am, see GP at 5.30pm....

You saw a GP the same day with a UTI. That is not what many people could access across the UK and yet you complain about it.

Some fucking weird people on here. You don't say!

Sadly General Practice ( like most parts of the NHS and public services generally ) is currently stretched to breaking point.

Of course it’s wrong that people can’t access the care they need in a timely fashion. It’s extremely distressing and frustrating to be ill or worried about a family member and unable to access healthcare.

However whilst everyone of course brings their own experience, I find some of the comments on this thread depressing. Whilst G.Ps are not specialists many of us have been working for 10s of years assessing and supporting thousands of patients and their families with increasingly complex conditions.

At different times of life people may need Primary Care in different ways. Younger people may prefer to access a specialist for a specific problem. However for many with complex mental health , social and physical needs G.Ps remain an important source of medical care and support by someone that knows them, their background and often their family.

We’re also quite efficient at seeing and treating multiple patients in a short space of time and identifying the small percentage that need specialist care. ( sadly no one will be correct 100% of the time...)

In my view the actual problem is long-standing and worsening underfunding coupled with recruitment crisis due to a wholly unrealistic workload, rather than the model of Primary Care.

These stories actually make me reluctant to move.
At my GPs you can phone any time to book an appointment, if you want a specific doctor you can have to wait. But if you don't mind you can usually get one the same week, and if urgent they will fit you in the same day. They have plenty of nurses and Health carers to do bloods.
And the local hospital has a separate urgent care (day) centre for you to be referred to by the GP, which avoids A and E.
I did have to take a 5 minute urgent appointment at the GP, when the hospital had told me I needed to start B12 injections immediately - which I felt a bit guilty about, but was the only way just before Christmas I would be seen before Christmas.

Always under-funding more like money being wasted and not used efficiently. Could chuck trillion at the NHS and still wouldn't fix the issue.

Wouldn't fix the issue of my doctor not giving me antibiotics when I needed it causing a whole of additional heath problems and more appointment needed then neccessary.

More moeny would not of stopped the other doctor being stubborn thinking my bleeding was just spotting only for a scan to show 3 fibroids.

Those doctors went through years of training too, their problem was they thought they knew best and just didn't want to actually listen and taken my history into consideration.

Also more money wouldn't make those nurses stop nattering inbetween blood tests either.

So I really disagree that chucking more money at the problem is the answer.

This is why my wife's advanced ovarian cancer ended up being diagnosed at a&e

Thedot90 advised by the doctor on a follow up appointment from scan where discussed options and I asked why I have developed fibroids they said due to increased oestrogen levels and they said to reduce then or prevent them growing too big to ea h foods that dont e encourage estrogen production, take progesterone pill or get a coil.

So I'm only going on what the doctor advised me

It's at least 3 weeks wait to get a GP appointment where I am and often it can be over 4 weeks; The system is a farce!

I got flamed for saying perhaps the OP could wait and what did she expect a dr to do about alot of her symptoms.

Having seen since then that people think waiting 2 hours for a UTI is bad then the issue is clear.

Yes the OP has some physical symptoms that warrant an investigation but the majority sound like anxiety and in saying I need to see a dr right now that sounds like anxiety.

Head ache, nausea, tiredness, all can be stress, and she can't decide if she isn't able to sleep or if she has actually been too tired to wake up that she's wry the bed more than once.

None of these scream emergency to me but it's the expectation that you should be seen the same day as you want to when you want to.

Same with a UTI.

Wet not wry

None of these scream emergency to me but it's the expectation that you should be seen the same day as you want to when you want to.

I don’t actually think that is an unreasonable expectation. Or at least it shouldn’t be. It used to be possible. But demographics (of both doctors and patients) have changed. The systems have not changed to accommodate this. In fact, they changed in such a way as to be a disincentive to full time GP practice in the UK.

@Iliketeaagain Thank you for this great tip! Got NHS app yesterday & have appointment for 10.30 today.

I would also like to thank the poster who advised about the NHS tip. I've just set it all up and was very straightforward. I've yet to need it to make an appointment but it is linked to my gp surgery now. I wonder can my children also set up the app? They are 14 and 15.

I have the app.

There are an abundance of appointments.

I dont get the renting about the phone you dont have to use it.

Of course, GP surgeries are paid "per patient, per year" so they get paid the same whether they see a patient monthly or yearly (or even hardly ever). There's no incentive for them to offer more appointments. In fact, GP surgeries are profiteering when they're short staffed as they're getting the same "per patient" funding but are saving wages. I guarantee that appointments would be more readily available if GP funding was moved over to a "per appointment" basis rather than "per patient".

There are an abundance of appointments.

Then you're lucky. I've had our surgery's app for a couple of years. Never more than a handful of appointments available, 3-4 weeks away. I've never yet seen an appointment within a week. They're always for locums at branch surgeries too (10-20 miles away) - never for our main surgery, and never ever seen an appointment for any of the actual GP partners.