GP practice "not offering appointments"

[Darkestseasonofall]

This is a new low. Just called to make an appointment to be told they aren't doing any for the foreseeable future.
If it's an emergency you can call on the day and try to get a telephone consultation, but that's it.
I can see a huge rise in people attending ED in appropriately or just becoming very ill with avoidable things.
This isn't NHS bashing, I'm a nurse, but I can't understand how primary care can just opt out of 90% of their contract.
AIBU to think this is just silly?

I appreciate that some areas are getting a worse service and all I can comment on is my locality where we are working extra hours, the same as PP who are also GPs have already posted.

Our admin team was severely affected by Covid and isolation, so for two weeks we were down to critical tasks only. I spent a lot of extra time doing admin tasks on top of my hideous clinical workload to keep the practice running.

We are not doing remote consultations because we are frightened of seeing patients, it's to protect vulnerable people and make sure our waiting rooms aren't packed. How is this so hard for people to understand?

Just read your last update op. It might be worth asking to speak to the practice manager to get to the bottom of what is /was going on with the receptionist. As this could really have an impact on someone more vulnerable who wasn't able to persist like you were.

For example imagine if you'd got the courage to call up about mental health issues for the first time and were told this. You'd probably just leave it.

This sort of thing makes me vexed as there loads of other GP practices out there, including my own who have been great throughout the pandemic.

I do like MN for a bit of escapism and it can be informative. However, when it starts getting like the DM comments section, I have to step back .

But both our gp practices in areas with high numbers of the elderly are managing it. One way system, qing outside, socially distancing seating, temp, masks and gel, anti bac wipes for chairs in waiting room. It’s really not hard if you want to do it.

Schools are on their knees with staff off.Still open for business and all services running.

I went to the pharmacy to pick up my child’s epi pen which I’d ordered the week before. It wasn’t there so I called the drs surgery who told me the gp hadn’t signed the script and he was working from home so there would be a delay in getting it signed off. So annoying!

It’s not DM to point out appalling service.

There was a gp on radio 2 yesterday saying the service sone are offering is not just appalling but unforgivable.

Is it ok for her to say that because she is a gp? I’m guessing the rest of us using the service just don’t matter and aren’t worthy of an opinion.

The DM style comments are those along the lines of 'just what are GPs doing?' - quite a few of us have explained.

And 'we should be able to opt out of paying GPs'

I phoned spire and have a telephone private gp appt on Tuesday. Progress.

My GP surgery is also refusing all appointments - including emergencies - everything has to be done via econsult . 40 odd irrelevant questions each time . I had to fill out for a UTI and kept getting asked if I’d done a lot of gambling recently ... never mind trying to add in pre existing conditions - it didn’t seem to be able to cope with that !!

At the end you get an email back saying where to pick up meds from . No human interaction at all or advice .

I’ve gone through lots of hospital tests since August and haven’t been able to discuss the (life changing) results with anyone . Hospital secretary said phone GP for appointment, GP receptionist said it isn’t their job to discuss the results - ask the hospital . Asked hospital again for advice, they said ‘ask your GP’. Ask GP again - ‘phone the hospital, it isn’t my job’ .

So you get stuck in this ridiculous loop of admin staff refusing to let you talk to a health professional at all . As a result I’ve no idea what’s happening with me next, why I’m ill, what’s needed to be done - except for a nurse telling me in August that my test results are seriously abnormal, will likely need more surgery and will need a lot of follow up .

It is incredibly frustrating and I feel so very alone with it .

This is pure Daily Mail

But people are paying for the nhs through taxes and NI. If they are not getting a gp service they need to be able to use that money to go privately surely. I can see why somebody would post that. It’s not entirely unreasonable.

What on earth are these people supposed to do.We’d have been screwed if we hadn’t had the service we’ve had.

All too often it’s the richer and more confident who get services. Expecting people to put up and shut up re a service they are paying for is not on.

We’ve got a gp appointment to discuss my sons blood test results next week. They tried ringing him ( teen, have put my number on his records now)and then sent a letter asking him to make an appointment which we got swiftly.

We’ve had 3 lots of bloods recently. Gp rang same day as we requested a conversation on one set and nurse went through the others on next appointment.

This is as it should be. That poor pp with the UTI.

It is incredibly frustrating and I feel so very alone with it .

I can imagine, I can't believe your GP won't discuss it with you.

Its 100 for gp appt, gulp, and they can do a blood test, probably follow up app after that discuss results

It was on radio 2 so not pure Daily Mail.

@gypsywater

This is pure Daily Mail

It maybe pure Dailly Mail to you but to us it was my DP's botched pancreatic cancer diagnosis and possibly his life.

I rang the Doctor a couple of weeks ago and was told I needed a blood test. The GP said to come in and he would do it himself as he was bored with telephone consultations and wanted to see a live patient! I did so then yesterday he rang back with the results and spent 10 minutes on the phone chatting about nothing in particular. He is brilliant. Incidentally there is no question of any mental health problems so he wasn't doing that thing of assessing the state of my mental health via a conversation. Mind you, it is a rural practice and he has only known of two coved cases.

@userxx

It is incredibly frustrating and I feel so very alone with it .

I can imagine, I can't believe your GP won't discuss it with you.

Apparently she knows nothing about it as she ‘didn’t study that stuff’ (in her words, the last time I managed to talk to her) . Said herself I’m better off not asking as she knows not what to advise me .

Hospital are definitely the worst of the two - given when I explained to the physician associate seeing me, I have PTSD and really struggle to cope with hospital appointments and tests etc .

‘Oh - well that’s not really anything to do with me at all, I’m only interested in the physical issues. Do you have any physical problems?’

There seems to be a mismatch between what some GPs are experiencing and what some patients are experiencing.

Perhaps an annual patients' survey of experience by each practice would be really useful for feedback and GPs / practice staff will know if there is an issue / issues or if they're doing well.

A lot of organisations do sentiment surveys to determine what's working or what isn't.

The other thing for people to understand is that GP practices are small independent businesses that have been contracted by the NHS to deliver primary care services to the public.

My GP practice (Outer London) is handling the situation well. You sign up to an app to book telephone consultations initially (released every morning and afternoon) and then if it is an issue which can’t be handled over the phone you go in. Lots of GP appointments can be handled over the phone and medication prescribed. It is a new way of working. As regards the elderly though the receptionist told me they are getting phone calls initially and home visits where required as well as in practice appointments. For the flu jab, all the GPs and nurses were lined up and jabbing people outside for ventilation.

With our GP you telephone and explain the problem to the receptionist who then says it will be passed to the GP who will call you at some point during the day. In reality the twice I've had to do this resulted in the first time receiving a text saying please connect to your video call now, I only noticed the text an hour after it was sent, and the second time ( 2 days ago ) receiving a text saying 'Indie please pick up your phone we are trying to call you' it then turned out the GP had tried to call a completely different number and had no response!
They can't even get the basics right !

I'm at the end of my tether with this too. My daughter has been unwell for nearly three months with (almost) daily vomiting and constant pain. She's not been to school apart from the odd day this academic year and when she does go in she gets sent home.

I called the doctor about it in August. We had two phone appointments first but they wouldn't do a face-to face. In September we went to A&E for a different but thought-to-be-related issue, where she was examined and admitted to hospital for a couple of days. The paediatrician said she probably had gastritis which could lead to a stomach ulcer if not treated, and she needed to see her GP straight away for tests. He said the tests had to be done via the GP rather than through the hospital.

That was over a month ago. Since then we've had more phone appointments where the GP has seemed surprised she is still unwell and said it couldn't be gastritis as she was too young. We had to wait three weeks for an appointment to have bloods taken. The week before last she started throwing up blood. I called back in and basically begged for a GP to see us. They sounded a bit panicked at that point and said we could go in that day and would probably have to go back into hospital. When we got there we were STILL not seen by a GP, but allocated to a paramedic who did all the basic checks then said he couldn't diagnose anything as he wasn't a GP. Then he said the tests had come back but were contaminated so they'd have to take more bloods and samples.

So my 13 year old has been throwing up daily, now throwing up blood, is in constant pain and can't go to school, looks like a zombie and is half the size she used to be, and despite repeated asking and being seen in A&E who told us to see a GP..... we can't se a GP.

I've already decided that if the test results aren't back by Monday I'm going to borrow some money and book to see someone privately. I'm so worried about her, watching her basically diminishing in front of me and knowing (hoping) this could be really treatable if only someone would actually properly see her.

People needing a smear, if you can afford it, book to get one done privately. I plan to do this going forward anyway, I saw a private female GP for this well before covid and the experience was much better than I usually have at my local surgery.

Omg to the poster above. How awful. I came on to say my surgery is the same. It seems to be universal - nobody is seeing a GP, everything is over the phone. And if you need to see a consultant - (like my daughter) - well, how long will that take? She’s had blood in her last 2 urine samples and still no appointment.