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?

[quote userxx]@Nothingoriginalhere What does your job entail if you don't mind me asking? [/quote]
bloods, bp ecgs, baby checks, health checks, we do a ton of bloods, we are still doing what bloods we can so immunology, haematology, inr, etc - anything but chemistry bloods. diabetic foot checks, 24hr bp monitoring, DNA hospital appt monitoring and over 75s signposting, checks, phonecalls. I have probably forgotten some things.
In normal times spirometry ( not resumed) and ear syringing- no capacity at present.
We also have to deep clean rooms etc when suspected covid in building! currently 1 or 21confirmed staff members and approx 8/9 off isolating.

@Proudboomer
In May, I was told a wait time of 2 years for hernia surgery. Mine was also incisional and large. I’ve just paid privately. I couldn’t wait that long. This is my 3rd surgery now as the first hernia repair was botched and causing me terrible, terrible pain. I had the top surgeon. 5.5k as I paid for and additional night, which I knew I would need due to my general very poor health.

We are in the middle of a global pandemic where everyone is having to find new ways of working - particularly health care professionals, who have seen a seismic shift in working practices, alongside dealing with the most vulnerable and sick.

The blame lies with the government who have cut funding year on year to the health service and mismanaged the pandemic response.

I work in the NHS and my team have worked flat out for 6 months through staff sickness and shortages and are feeling desparate as we enter the second wave.

@Nothingoriginalhere And your rate of pay is what you stated earlier? How can that be? Why is the gap so big between yours and doctors apart from the obvs training. I'm shocked 😞. That's a massive amount of responsibility you've got.

yes pay is £9:45 per hour, 1x unpaid lunch only, no other breaks in a 8 hour shift.
pay is poor in primary care unless you are a gp partner, across the board I think. RGN are on less than secondary care equialent also.

That pay for a nurse is diabolical. I read an article once about how jobs, which were traditionally Female and then became traditionally male went up massively in pay. Eg IT, which used to be very lowly paid until men took on the roles. The same is true in reverse. Ie a traditionally male role became traditionally female and went down massively in pay. This is why nursing, traditionally female, is paid a pittance.

I tried to make an appointment to gave a itchy and increasingly sore small mole on my neck looked at. Told would have to call on the day- no pre bookable appointments. Couldn’t get an appointment ‘on the day’ after trying for a week so gave up & have made private appointment with consultant who does a local private clinic. (No GP referral needed fortunately.) Not everyone can afford private investigation. This stuff about ‘don’t be too frightened to see your GP’ strikes me as from another planet. I’m not frightened, I just can’t get an appointment!

My mother is 89 & when she recently tried to make an appointment with her GP (different surgery) was told there was nothing for 5 weeks.

I should say my mothers 5 week wait is for an agonisingly painful ear infection .... not a routine appointment for a check up.

I know a few doctors receptionists and admin staff. They assure me that no one is sitting on their backside drinking cups of tea, but work flat out. Most local surgeries take phone calls then see patients in person if the needs can’t be addressed over the phone. Nurses appointments are full doing bloods, dressings, injections etc. Doctors have had weekend flu clinics.

@Gladysthesphinx Surely the doctor will prescribe antibiotics without seeing her if they know it's an ear infection?

@Nothingoriginalhere I think it's a disgrace, without people like you we'd be in a massive mess. You should be paid accordingly.

We can phone for appointments in advance (about 8-10,days at present) or on the day slots. All are triaged by a doctor by phone though on the day of the appointment, then invited into surgery if the doctor things you need it.

Only problem is that you don't get an exact time for the telephone appointment -mist just some time in the morning. So that only works for things where your ill enough not to be at work. I work in a school so don't have a phone on me.

Was fine this week as I was ill enough to be home. Doctor triaged me by phone during the morning - I'd called at 8:30am for a same day slot. I then was asked to go in same day so went straight away.

I can make appointments with the nurse for blood tests etc but there's a couple of weeks wait.

I should say that I've been able to have my routine blood tests throughout. I have them every 2-3 months for medication reasons, and that hasn't changed throughout it all. The wait for an appointment with the nurse is a fortnight or so, but it always was.

We can also turn up at a and e unplanned.

We also have a walk in gp centre in town and you can still turn up there without an appointment.

I've heard colleagues say they needed a blood test and gp said they aren't doing bloods currently. They offered to get it done st work (hospital worker) and that was fine because hospitals have been continuing to offer services as much as possible (my department has continued nearly s normal!). I'm sure GP surgeries are working harder than we realise but it feels like the service currently on offer is not to the standard it once was and less compared to other nhs services. I've heard consultants saying they are expecting to have more advanced cancer cases in the future as a side effect of the pandemic and patients finding it harder to see their GP.

Doctors surgeries running as normal here in NI, and I think we have the highest rates of CV in the UK

I can 100% assure you they aren't! During all this I have covered massive areas of 2 large councils in NI. My workload has massively increased. I am absolutely disgusted with around 90% of the GP surgeries in these areas. I have literally begged, almost been reduced to tears trying to get a doctor out to see some of my very vulnerable patients. I have managed to secure 1 house call since this all started. Just the other day my palliative lung cancer patient was very ill. But he had reversable causes that deserve to be treated. GP had a fit! "but he has a cough!!" Yes because he has bloody lung cancer, he's been coughing for 2 years! Very much of the idea send a nurse, sure it's OK that we sit in every house, see every patient but God forbid a doctor does! I can honestly say I haven't turned down 1 referral or visit during all this. The same can not be said for GPs.

And all of be fellow specialist nurses / District nurses/Community nurses I work with, are feeling just as angry and let down. We actually have a joint meeting of management, unions and nurses next week to discuss how the hell we can make these GPs step up and play their part. We started keeping a file for when they refused to see patients that should be seen as part of our evidence. We are now on our send large ring binder. We have been provisionally 'promised' a meeting with the Health ministers representatives to bring forward our concerns. We will not let this drop. I honestly feel that the GPs have seriously let themselves and their patients, as well as their nursing colleagues down. Sorry for the rant, this just makes me so angry!

Also I have had to pay for a private appointment, resulting scans and treatment because I could not get seen by my own GP. I had a phone consultation and was fobbed off. I told him I could feel a lump and I needed him to feel it. Refused, told me to wait a few months and come back if it hadn't settled. Yet that Sunday night he did a shift in Out of Hours (didn't see any patients. Sent us to verify the death of a covid patient because GPs are doing that incase they catch covid from the corpse 🙄) got paid ridiculous money for it and actually tried to sit in my office 'having a chat' with me and the other nurse. So it's OK for him to try and 'socially' sit with me, but not at an appointment. The mind baffles!

Graphista for the vast vast majority of patients of all ages I can tell you home BP monitoring works well. The machines people buy are no different/better to those we have in surgery. And experience has shown that most people don't freak out over the numbers, indeed research shows readings are lower at home. Patients don't have to interpret them, just hand them in.

This frees up appointments for me to be doing your smear, immunising your child, taking bloods for your relative undergoing chemo, managing your diabetes. Of course if patients refuse we will see them, but it's always preferable to avoid bringing in patients to an enclosed public space during a global pandemic. And due to reasons explained they may have a long wait for an appointment. Practice nurse numbers were already declining alongside a growing ageing population and all their co-morbidities before this mess.

@TheGoogleMum

blood test problem

“ I've heard colleagues say they needed a blood test and gp said they aren't doing bloods currently. ”

There’s a national supply chain problem with blood testing at the moment, so GPS have been advised to do essential and urgent blood tests only.

The google we've actually been doing more bloods than ever before, largely because people under the care of specialists who would normally have had them done in hospital, have been sent to the GP.

I’m really shocked by this. We have had and are having plenty of face to face appointments when needed and telephone calls on the day or very soon after if face to face not necessary. Had one skin mid diagnosis from a photo but that has been my only complaint. We’ve even had bloods done in days by nurses and an A&E visit that was handled very well.

I think these GP surgeries are absolutely taking the pis*
I can't get a blood test at my surgery despite being anaemic and because of this my GP won't prescribe any medication to help.
I'm a registered nurse and have had to work all the way through Covid nursing Covid positive patients, imagine if we all decided to shut shop and let people get on with it.
They are a health care professional and I feel they should be providing proper care to their patients

2 of my children have had bloods done twice recently. This week and last week along with other obs. One to check not deficient in anything before meds. No mention of shortages or anything. In fact with the other child who has had bloods done twice in the last 2 weeks the hospital request hadn’t even come through and they still did it.

Feeling very fortunate re the service we’re getting. Everybody should have the same.

Ds has a lot of chest problems, like most things the key is to catch it early. I phoned the GP for an appointment and was told he agreed he needed seeing but they can’t see anyone with respiratory problems so I would need to take him to A and E

Thankfully he did prescribe steroids when I explained that taking a child who was shielding to A and E wasn’t ideal especially when not ill enough for A and E.

Thankfully I managed to get in touch with his consultant who then was able to give us some more steroids and super strong antibiotics and for now we are doing ok.

I’m lucky though and 11 years down the line I pretty much know what I am doing with it all, all of this when he was younger would have been a nightmare for his health

CAMHs have been pretty appalling though.

I think these GP surgeries are absolutely taking the piss

This! In fact, this thread has inspired me to make a complaint about mine giving my baby the wrong prescription because she couldn’t be bothered to see us face to face.

What gets me are the professionals not offering face to face more than happy to let their children’s teachers and staff sit in cramped classrooms with their child and 30 other children. It smacks of using Covid to facilitate not going into work.

It seems as if some NHS professionals think they’re somehow more fragile than the rest of the population who are out there getting on with working with Covid.

My dc recently had a spell in hospital. Life as normal, all staff getting on with things as per normal- nurses doing obs and blood tests continuously, drs doing rounds on packed wards .....

But gps, gp nurses and counsellors in some areas are apparently more fragile then everybody rise and can’t sit fully pped up in a room socially distancing with 1patient?

Rubbish, they simply don’t want to and are enjoying “working from home.”