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 can't get my bloods done and I'm meant to get them checked every three months. Way behind on that.

I'm also desperate to see my (NHS) dentist but I've made three appointments and they've cancelled all of them. My teeth are terrible and one is literally falling to bits (filling failed in April and the rest of the tooth is just crumbling away)

This has been my GP since March. It's really ridiculous.

I got fed up waiting for the receptionist to answer and then be cut off. But when I checked the online website there was a form you could fill in. You detail your symptoms and a gp will get back to you. He sent me for a blood test, ultra sound and medication. Much more efficient then travelling all the way there for an appt.

Mine’s been like this for a couple of months. Phone up first thing and if you get through you’re told the doctor will call you at some point between x and y o’clock. Which is really fucking helpful when you’re on calls and video meetings for half the day - people do work, remember? And not everyone can answer their phone while at work.

On top of that they’ve turned off the online appointment AND repeat medication ordering, meaning I have to do this every month. Amazing.

On the positive side though I did go in for a smear test and everything was set up really well with distancing in the waiting room, sanitiser etc.

@QuestionableMouse

Could you try other dentists in the area? I recently had a filling done. I called a few months ago but they wouldn’t see me. Couple of weeks ago I managed to speak for the dentist on the phone who then booked me in. It seems that most are doing tel appt first and then if needed they will do face to face.

Yeah I'm a hospital nhs worker and think the gp surgeries need to provide more care for people. Mine is phone appointments only but they say they might ask you to come in (they do video call or get you to send photos where possible). I understand they need to limit appointments a lot but I think its a bit too far. I wonder how many excess deaths it will ultimately cause.

What rock have you been sleeping under? Our GP's have been doing that since lockdown (and so did our vet). Even before covid, quite a lot of our routine consults with rural GP and specialists in city hospitals were by phone consult . In many situations, as patients we find a phone or zoom consult works perfectly to exchange information during ongoing treatment , discuss test results, show new visible symptom etc and saves a huge amount of time for Dr and patient. We don't have any delays in getting a phone or zoom consult and if they become the permanent normal we'll be pleased. DH's regular physical tests and injections are still available face to face in person.

Has anyone used the Livi app where you can speak to a doctor?

My GP has been like this since long before the pandemic. You always had to phone on the day before 8.30am for 2hat would inevitably be a telephone triage call, with a doctor if you were very ons stent, but usyalky a nurse. Doctor diagnoses over the phone. I've had what turned out to be a fracture deadly with over the phone, started before the pandemic, and that turned out to be a dusaster because x rays dudnt show it up and the nhs physio I eventually saw after 2 months didn't spot the fracture. I then had to wait months for a further telephone consultation with a specialist who sent for an mri (further delay) which diagnosed the non healed fracture I'd been told to walk around on! By then it was too late or they couldn't be bothered to immobilise it so I had to try and not weight bear on it til it healed. During this 4 - 5 months I phoned my GP several times complaining of pain and was prescribed painkillers but no question of actually seeing the gp.

Phoned a few weeks ago and got a same day telephone appointment with a doctor. I dusgnosed myself with an infected finger and was prescribed antibiotics over the phone.

It's as of actual patients are seen as a nuisance and to be got rid of as quickly as possible, which is much less trouble for GPs to do over the phone.

@Quaversplease

I couldn't book an appointment online and phoned as I needed a repeat prescription for HRT. I usually get 6 months at a time after a review.

Because I can't see a GP for a review (they are only doing telephone appointments) they will only give me 1 month at a time so it's currently costing me £19 per month for the prescription instead £19 for 6 months. I'm about to be made redundant and that's a significant expense.

It sounds like you need a pre-payment certificate which is £29.65 for three months.

Ours has the whole phone explain to the receptionist then, if they have space, a doctor will call you back sometime within a 5 hour window.

If it needs to be seen you might be lucky enough to see a nurse but it’s absolutely no doctor in person appointments

I don’t understand how doctors can justify it or are all nurses suddenly qualified to diagnose everything

Our surgery has been like that since March and it’s working out a treat, no more hypochondriacs filling the waiting room and taking up appointments, no sign on the wall telling you that 142 appointments were missed last month and the cost to the NHS for their wasted time. Here you call the surgery, speak to the receptionist, wait for a call back from the GP who then decides whether you need to be seen or not. Fab service, efficient and no time wasters for GP’s. My son was seen face to face in September and I had a telephone consultation for medication review.

Just to counteract the gloom, my GP practice have been amazing. I've had phone appointments at a booked time and when my DD needed to be seen she was given an appointment for a couple of hours time. I put in a prescription request today and was called back by the GP in about 2 hours to ask me questions. You now get to phone for repeat prescriptions instead of having to go in and put a form in the box (they used the NHS Scotland website for a while but it was a shambles so they stopped) and the receptionists have always been really polite and professional. I also got an appointment with my diabetes nurse within 1 working day instead of the usual 3 weeks which was a miracle!

This makes me wonder what do GPs actually DO anymore?

I'd give my GP practice 2/10 at the moment.

Their lack of action, or is it laziness is costing lives.

Last year when my daughter couldn't leave the house the GP's surgery were insisting that her prescription couldn't be renewed if she didn't come to the surgery. I explained that the medication was prescribed by the psychiatrist who saw her at home because she couldn't leave the house and invited the GP to see her at home. The GP declined and after much umming and arring agreed that the psychiatrist could review the prescription.
This year the medication review was due in April, GP said they would review when reviews started up again. Psychiatrist has seemingly disappeared as have heard nothing from him since the week before lockdown. GP has not yet restarted reviews and only emergency F2F appointments after telephone triage. No blood tests, no smears but child immunisation had restarted although that might again have halted now we are tier two from tomorrow

Also maybe phone calls work well for some routine things but what about mental health issues where a lot of diagnosis would be in seeing how someone looks / acts - things that can be harder to work out on phone

Or where people have pains etc. but don’t like to worry people / underplay things and things will be missed where a face to face consult would see pain / tell reactions on examination

I just think it’s neglectful of doctors to take this approach

My surgery are doing this too.

My sister has had a terrible time recently (not covid related) and had been admitted to hospital a couple of times. After a few days of getting out she was still feeling unwell and called for an appointment. She got a telephone consultation but GP agreed that she needed to been seen urgently face to face so if she could just take a covid test (zero symptoms btw) they would give her an appointment! Even then she still didn't get her appointment and ended up having to go to A&E and was admitted again.

This is the tip of the iceberg with what has happened but the system is well and truly broken right now and it's so wrong.

The level of care at my GP surgery has declined significantly since lockdown. Before that it was great. I started getting chronic daily headaches, nausea and dizziness during the summer, which coincided with my periods restarting due to having PCOS and losing 4 stone. Unfortunately they have been so heavy I’ve needed medication to slow the blood loss down. I also noticed at the same time that my hair started falling out a lot, to the point now that it’s so thin I’m embarrassed to leave the house without wearing a hat. When I called my GP the first time, they said ‘take ibruprofen”. I’d already been doing that for 2 weeks, but it wasn’t helping and that was why I’d called them! 🙄 Rang back 2 weeks later and they decided they would see me that time. However, they still told me the same thing “take ibruprofen”. I asked if they could be linked to my iron levels due to my heavy periods (I’d had a blood test previously but they said my iron was “within the normal levels”) and was categorically told “no, you’d be fainting”. Luckily I saw my dermatologist recently for an unrelated condition and asked her about my hair and when she looked at my blood results she said my iron levels weren’t high enough to sustain hair growth and advised me to take ferrous sulphate. I’ve been taking this now for 2 weeks and would you believe it the headaches have gone!!! Yet my GP said it wasn’t possible for my iron levels to be causing my symptoms?! I’m so annoyed with their couldn’t give a toss attitude I’m thinking of making a complaint.

@stclair

I’m a practice nurse and don’t understand a lot of what I’m reading either. We are crazy busy, GPs included, and have been for ages. Yes, it can be over a week to get an appointment (and this is with us squeezing patients in during breaks etc), but SIX out of the 9 patients I had this morning booked in for a smear didn’t show. Such a waste of appointments!!

That's appalling!

My surgery are not doing appointments, face to face. Frankly, I think they should have resumed once the Covid restrictions were eased in the summer. Even the winter flu jabs are being done in the local Pharmacy. I am not impressed.

YANBU, it's dangerous, ridiculous, and just forces people to seek care elsewhere such as A&E out of desperation, even if the issue itself isn't actually urgent (if that makes sense). The surgery here have actually been amazing throughout, DS had his needles the week after lockdown and with a decent system in place, they generally do the call back but will happily see people who need to be seen in person the same day. Routine apps have different arrangements, either video, phone or in person depending on the nature of the app ie if bloods and obs need to be taken, and whether the patient has access to make a video call etc. A GP actually came out in full PPE to see DS as we weren't sure whether he had covid but needed to be seen, and they wanted to see him to signpost the most appropriate place. It is a busy surgery too, but what they have done is incredible, and all of the staff are great

I'm a GP and threads like this make me feel like I'm bashing my head against a brick wall.
I've honestly never worked so hard and quite frankly feel exhausted, run down and close to packing the whole job in.

We offer telephone appointments bookable on the day, always overbooked with extras.
Patients that need seeing face to face are invited in that day. I'm 26 weeks pregnant and still seeing all patients that need it face to face in the rubbish surgical masks, even those patients who refuse to actually wear a mask themselves putting myself and my baby at risk.

We've been doing bloods throughout, there is a nationwide lab issue at the moment with some of the reagent I believe but that isn't the fault of primary care.
Smears we have been doing for months.
Immunisations and baby checks etc never stopped either.

We have a number of staff off with Covid, I'd say primary care morale is at an all time low.

We're getting multiple contacts from patients daily asking why their outpatient appointments are being cancelled and can we chase it up, we're getting the hospital asking us to organise investigations in primary care.
We're struggling to do our own job so don't have time to be doing everybody else's too!

As an aside today was my half day for childcare reasons, so I should leave about 1ish, usually stay until 2ish, I'm still at work now.

I don't know a single practice that isn't seeing patients.
I know everybody is suffering at the moment and it is harder but if the practice is overrun by staff sickness due to Covid what are they supposed to do?

Primary care has been underfunded for years and never has it been more evident.
If you want to see real change complain to the CCG/your MP.

My surgery is asking people to fill out an online questionnaire, then if they think you need to be seen they'll arrange an appointment. I thought it was a decent system. I was offered a same day appointment

noseresearch@ I can beat that I was told that the practice manager would ring me for medication review.

Ours requires an online form to request an appointment then triages. You used to be able to book direct online.