to think that people don't realise how tough it is being a GP?

[naima99]

My dad is a GP. He used to love his job, got home at a reasonable time and had more time to spend with his patients.

Now, he regularly gets to work at 7am and leaves at 9:30pm. He has no time for lunch a lot of the time. He hates that he doesn't have the time he used to have for his patients. He gets tonnes of abuse when he's running late but isn't allowed to say that he's late because his last patient was having a suspected heart attack in front of him, or that he had a child in front of him with undiagnosed diabetes whose life was in danger etc. He's lost so many staff members because they're all fed up. He has no life outside of work because he is working on the weekends as they're so short staffed.

He knows so many doctors in the same position.

Now I'm not claiming that GPs are heroes or deserve any more than the rest of us, but I hear them being slated so so much.

People get angry that they can't get an appointment, that the GP only let them talk about two medical conditions in a 10 minute appointment, that google told them something different so the GP must be wrong which results in complaints or anger directed towards them. I was on a conference call the other day when my colleagues randomly started slaying GPs and them not seeing people face to face during covid saying they need to 'man up'

I don't know if IABU to think that a lot of people don't quite understand that appointments in the surgery are such a small part of being a GP, and that it is a pretty gruelling job at times. Maybe I am just being protective over my dad as I can see him falling apart in front of me.

Does anyone agree or AIBU?

I think I more than appreciate how tough my GPs' (plural, rarely see same one twice) is because they all constantly complain about it! A couple of years ago I'd booked an appointment for myself (skin problem, turned out to be a melanoma) and also had a 6-month old baby. The baby started vomiting that morning and I had to take him with me to the appointment. The GP made a huge fuss about how annoying it was when people tried to get two for the price of one etc, so which of us had the problem... I picked my son because he was little and in distress, and then had to wait another two weeks for the GP to see me again and refer me to the hospital. As I awaited that appointment and the excision I started to feel really pissed off that the GP had delayed my getting seen for skin cancer (I'd shown her the mole sort of in passing, in the initial appointment, and it was an obviously a dodgy one) because she was so preoccupied with how awful her job/ life was and with a one appointment / one illness allowed policy!

So I do think it's a hard job, but I also think it's the responsibility of GPs and NOT patients to advocate for better conditions (if indeed they're so universally bad), and most of all to put patient care before legalistic process and complaining. I have always had amazingly good care from the NHS when in hospital or seeing a specialist and did while giving birth too. Have seen same exceptional going-beyond sort of care from nursing staff when my father was dying, from antenatal midwives, and generally across the system. But my experience of a large number of GPs in central London has been poor, including a couple of serious misdiagnoses. So my undoubtedly prejudicial assumption is that they make their own lives difficult and often lack the competency to do their job well.

@Viviennemary if my dad plus another GP went part time the surgery wouldn't function and it's so hard to recruit long term staff at the moment. Honestly, they're terrified of someone else going part time. It's not as simple as that.

There seems to be a culture of blaming GP's for being part time despite part time for a GP being akin to full time hours for many office jobs. My GP has made calls to me at 8pm when his first appointment was at 9am.
I have to switch between topics maybe hourly at work all day and it can be brain scrambling. It must be very much worse to have to do that every ten minutes every day with the fear that you miss something significant with very real consequences.

@hopsalong it sounds like your GP was incredibly unprofessional. I don't speak for all GPs. There are always bad eggs.

In fairness re the one problem per appointment thing, that is a rule that a lot of doctors have to stick to otherwise they would be there until midnight. I think most GPs offer double appointments for two problems.

Also @hopsalong it takes time to go through notes and being up people's files etc. Thinking about it I think I would be annoyed as a GP if two different people, baby or not, turned up to one appointment...

Sorry but with all these people in low paid jobs and losing their jobs I can't shed tears for Gp's. In any case from what I've heard hospital doctors have it a lot harder.

@Viviennemary money isn't everything. I think most people are able to empathise with someone and realise that you can earn a high wage but also have a poor quality of life at the same time (and trust me, at the moment it isn't a good quality of life for my father).

I am a very low earner. I still worry about my old man!

Someone always has it harder. It doesn't cancel out the struggles of those who have it 'easier'

Well this is cheering... my DD1 starts her GP training in August...
Then again, being on covid wards for the last few months hasn't exactly been a barrel of laughs for her either....

I would have sympathy, but I have never met a nice GP - sorry but it's true.
They get paid loads compared to most working people, so presumably could retire or work part time?
I'm more sympathetic to nurses & carers who have gruelling work, without the great pay-packet.

Totally agree. However it is possible to get into a part time role, or go into a specialism or public health.

I think GPs do have a hard job now but many of the public still remember the days when the GP contract was hugely misjudged by a previous government so hours reduced and salaries rocketed. I remember those days and think current GPs are paying the price for those who profited back then

I've had some excellent GPs, and it is a hard job.

OTOH, the work hours aren't very unusual, are they? People work long hours. It's bad. But it is how things are these days. I know that it my job, you expect to be studying for at least 7 years (more likely 9 or 10), then you do short, badly paid contracts for 2-10 years, then eventually you get a permanent job and you are well paid, at around 40k.

I get the impression GPs are sometimes paid more than that.

I think it must be hugely stressful work. But it is compensated - isn't that partly what the money is for?

My assumption, when a GP runs late, is that the GP has been providing care to another patient that needed more than 10 minutes and one day it will be me who needs that extra time.

There's also a cycle of GPs who provide a sympathetic ear and then end up with the patients who want that extra time/care/support.

We are lucky that you can ask for a specific GP at our surgery. It is well known locally that:
If you know what's wrong with you and just want a prescription, see Dr A. Never have to wait, appointments run like clockwork. Don't expect much problem solving or a sympathetic ear.
If you want a referral or a more thorough investigation, see Dr B.
If you want a sympathetic ear and to be properly listened to, see Dr C. Expect to wait at least 40 min beyond your appointment if it isn't at the beginning of the session.
Avoid Dr D who is obstructive and patronising.

This must massively impact the different GPs' workload.

My neighbours are a hospital consultant/GP pair. They reckon GP is the tougher job for a number of reasons, one being recruitment difficulties (most surgeries in our area are very understaffed and a couple have closed this year), another being the vast range of conditions, patient ages etc they have to deal with, whereas most hospital doctors work within narrower fields. They also can't get investigations done as easily as in hospital and have to make decisions based on limited information in a very short time. All jobs have their pros and cons of course and its hard to make direct comparisons but I definitely think being GP looks pretty difficult.
I know they are not perfect and of course some are better than others. In fact I have personally had a serious condition missed by a GP. Obviously I wasn't happy about it, but I don't think it was because she is bad, stupid, lazy, or uncaring. Just human.

I hate that it can take up to 6 weeks to get an appointment at my practice, but I don’t blame the GPs at all, I put the blame in so many years of Tory government, they have cut the budgets down so much, cut so many programmes and subsidies that what was normal in the past (getting an routine appointment in the same week) it is practically impossible.

I have had a lot to do with GPs in terms of professional regulation, QOF assessments and so on. If I were going to choose one factor that influences how well a practice works and the individual GPs within it and the quality of service on offer, it’s having the right Practice Manager

My sister is a GP senior practice head and now medical officer for her authority.

Seems tough and gets on with it! Had to be tested twice already but lucky unlike her junior doctors both tests negative.

Pay is good for the stress guessing less than £200K I think but never know because Oxon PHD too and formerly private work with big name professional football team etc.

Taken to Covid fight pretty robustly! And witnessed collateral damage with former work colleagues partner lost to Covid but not too many patients as far as I know.

True professional - work is work and mentally tough!

"Salary is good considering that GPs now have lower life expectancies than people in other jobs due to the stress, rising rates of suicide and mental health problems amongst GPs"

Awful. But then they could be a prison officer earning 20% of that wage

I think that many public-facing roles are becoming unbearable; medicine, teaching, the police force and emergency services. It's horrible and I wonder what it will take to change this.

I completely agree. Explanation is the same for all...ever increasing demand for service, ever increasing expectations on individuals, ever increasing workload, ever increasing targets/accountability...all coupled with recruitment and retention issues, ever decreasing funding and a tendency for government and press to demonize any sector that try to make a stand. How often in the past have you heard xxxx group of people are on strike over pensions/pay? 90% of the time it's actually been to do with conditions, workload, general lack of funding.

Years of austerity and government cuts, often hidden behind politician talk about "in real terms" or "more than ever before" when due to restructuring or increasing numbers it's still less per head, or general fudging the numbers, have seriously damaged those professions. And the individuals within those stretch themselves further and further to try not to let the public down, to the detriment of themselves and their families.

We need a government to actually invest in those areas and genuinely value those who work there. We need £££ to be spent on vital services, not squandered. Look at the Covid app...last month it was going to world-beating, vital...now it's dropped. All that money wasted. Apple and Goigle doing it instead - as offered originally. Look at the fresh paint on Boris' plane.

Frontline services need money.

Every GP I’ve had has been lovely. Your husband’s experience is normal for the public sector, unfortunately. Each person is pissed off at the overall service, won’t vote to improve it, so blames the person they see face to face. You husband has probably had teachers angry at him for having to wait for an appointment, and I’ve had doctors angry at me for our school lacking glue sticks. It’s just frustration at the system, and we have to try not to take it personally.

I’m sure it’s a tough job at times. It’s awful that they receive abuse and that is never acceptable but equally they don’t always treat their patients with respect. One consultant once said that many GPs he knows have a god complex. Many years later I think he was right.

I’m always polite, arrive on time, keep to my 10 minute time slot and thank them for their time but the vast majority of GPs I’ve come into contact with have been unpleasant. I haven’t seen a GP for about 5 years now, the last one I saw made me cry and I’m a very strong person. My partner thought I’d been given bad news when I got home as I rarely cry. I have had a couple of phone appointments with a locum and they’ve been so professional and helpful that my faith has been restored somewhat. On the whole I struggle to feel sorry for them.

I certainly wouldn’t encourage my kids to study medicine though, there’s better jobs that pay better and have less stress.

I’ve got the upmost respect for your dad and the like, especially during these times.

Let’s be honest - most people simply aren’t clever enough to become doctors!! And I very much include myself in that statement

The ones that are, as another pp pointed out, mainly go in to different fields. Then the amount of time it takes to train 1 GP, it’s no wonder they are under pressure, because it’s difficult to fill the vacancies. Obviously they know this so succumb to that pressure.

People are just bludy rude. It’s not his fault if the person before was telling him
their life story. They can’t win sadly. I hope he finds a happy medium OP

I hope your dad is ok he sounds like a good one, but they all know the deal, the money the hours and the training they go through for this?

I'm very biased as I've had nothing but medical gaslighting from GPS for the last 5 years that has caused me great distress and I've just had to self diagnose a very serious condition and pay fully for private care with a surgeon I selected.

They need to keep training, keep updated and stop trying to hand out antibiotics or every single issue, they also need to learn about women's medical conditions fully and stop being so dismissive of period related pain, they also need to stop trying to shove the coil up every single uterus in the country 🙈

I suspect one of the hardest things for GPs must be having to work to targets that are based on everything but the welfare of their patients.

I can think of more stressful jobs earning a fraction of the 200k per annum that a GP typically earns. Tell him to retire early and enjoy his pension if you care that much about him.