AIBU to be annoyed that my GP seems to have no plans in place to see patients as we come out of lockdown?

[everydayiwritethebook]

After reading another poster's thread where she couldn't be seen by a GP and ended up at A&E, it struck me just how angry I am about not being able to see a GP face to face (socially distanced of course).
I have had a couple of instances where I've needed to see a GP, and my DC urgently needs to see one face to face, but we can't. I understand during lockdown it was necessary, but I haven't been able to see a GP in 14 months and now that most places are back at work (I work with the public and have been back for several weeks), it feels like they're taking the piss.
It's actually got worse at my surgery - today I took a letter in for my GP about being referred for a condition, and whereas previously they had a locked foyer which you could enter one at a time, now the front door is locked and you speak to the receptionist via intercom! I was also told my letter would be quarantined for 72 hours, even though I said it is urgent.
I feel like they are really failing their patients now, and I wondered what other people's experiences or thoughts were about this?

They really have hit the jackpot haven’t they. I can’t see them wanting to see the majority of patients ever again.

I'm not sure how you can make a blanket statement that drs waiting areas are small and cramped with no space to Sd. The surgery I go to has an enormous waiting room with probably enough chairs to seat 25 people and theres rarely more than 3 people waiting (it's about 4 times the size of the dentist waiting room)

@Ijustknowitstimetogo

They really have hit the jackpot haven’t they. I can’t see them wanting to see the majority of patients ever again.

Aah, this is where you are totally wrong. Phone calls take longer than F2F and if the GP needs to see you it's 2 appointments instead of 1.

The telephone method is great for minor issues that can be resolved without examination and a script given - but anything more complex plus mental health takes considerably longer.

We want F2F back ASAP but it's not safe! An outpatient hospital appointment for a non acute ailment is nowhere near as risky as the acute and frail elderly patients seen in a GP practice.

Can't think of any GPs who love this way of working and the continual patient dissatisfaction. 🤔

Yet our practise are happily sending those frail vulnerable patients to sit in A and E waiting rooms rather than seeing them at a set time.

I don’t really believe you. I think the majority of GPs are loving this way of working.

Telephone and video will have an important role to play moving forwards and that’s a good thing. But the majority of GPs are not doing COVID vaccinations and they’re not seeing patients either.

Most went part time years ago because they can afford to. I do worry about whether they really build up the expertise and hone their skills and develop that ‘GP’s intuition’ when they’re only working 2 days a week.

@Sirzy please please keep pushing, send pictures to your doctors surgery on an email & demand under NICE guidelines for melanoma for your dad to be seen. Or phone your local hospital & talk to a dermologists section & explain your GP us refusing to see him & his Mole is growing and leaking. Having nearly died from malignant melanoma which was incorrectly diagnosed at my GP years ago it is paramount he gets seen

My doctors is good but some of these are ridiculous

@Ijustknowitstimetogo - DH(a GP) but prefer everyone is seen f2f but that isn’t going to happen again. He has worked six days a week throughout and the surgery has never been closed but has followed the new regulations from NHS England. His surgery also did the usual flu vaccination programme and Covid vaccinations for care home residents and staff, the CV and those who can’t leave their home easily.

At the very least, if telephone/video is the way forward, then ALL surgeries need to put appointment requests etc on their website. It's crazy that we still have to phone at 8am and wait in a queue until deemed worthy to speak to a receptionist. Some surgeries have put up an online system to describe symptoms and request an appointment - why havn't all done that???

[quote Parker231]@Ijustknowitstimetogo - DH(a GP) but prefer everyone is seen f2f but that isn’t going to happen again. He has worked six days a week throughout and the surgery has never been closed but has followed the new regulations from NHS England. His surgery also did the usual flu vaccination programme and Covid vaccinations for care home residents and staff, the CV and those who can’t leave their home easily.[/quote]
Fair enough Parker231. I realise there is a mixed bag and not everyone’s the same.

Cause of problem with NHS re doctors is that when it was founded they were treated differently to other NHS staff - they are publicly funded laws unto themselves - with apparently little or no accountability.

The problem mainly seems to be that the current system was implemented very quickly as an emergency measure to deal with the pandemic, so nobody expected it to be a perfect system, but now surgeries seem to have decided that this will be the new permanent system there does not seem to be any kind of discussion or review into how to make this new system work practically long term.

Having phone triage is great for a lot of things where you don't need to physically see the doctor, you just need to be able to speak to them directly (eg mandatory medication reviews, discussing some test results etc) but there should be an option to bypass the phone system if it is for something that needs physical assessment and examination (eg pain in a joint, a concerning mole, breast lump etc) because otherwise the triage system requires double the amount of doctors time to call you up to say they need to see you, for an ailment that could never have treated over the phone in the first place.

Additionally there should still be a way to book appointments (whether thag is phone or F2F) in advance for a specific day/time - previously if I had an issue that needed treatment but wasn't "same day appointment/A&E urgent" then I could go online or phone the surgery and book an appointment for a few days or weeks time. This meant I could book an appointment when it was convenient or would at least have a few days to rearrange my schedule to accommodate it. Now, the option is a same day phone appointment at some indeterminate time between when you called and 8pm or nothing, and that is only if you can get a phone appointment slot for that day - if not then you have to repeat the process over and over again.

I work in a supermarket (have done all through lockdown) so I have seen and dealt with hundreds of thousands of customers in the last year because I didn't have a choice but to deal with them. I literally cannot afford to take the time off to make a doctors appointment - I can't just walk away from the checkout to call the doctor for an hour solid from 8am every day for a week, and if I am lucky enough to be doing later shifts so I can call, the fact I will get a call "at some point today" means I have to take off the whole day (usually pissing off my manager because it is so short notice as it is same day) because I can't have my phone on me at work, and even if I could have my phone on me I can't guarantee that I can drop everything to answer the one call the doctors at my surgery will attempt before recording it as a "no show" appointment and I have to go through the whole rigmarole again. This is leading to people either going to A&E/Minor injuries because it is the only way to be seen or by the time they are being seen by a medical professional it has gone from a simple round of antibiotics for an issue that has been caught early to requiring much more invasive/aggressive treatment because the issue has had time to get worse and more serious.

DH has tried over and over to see a GP about a urology issue (worried about c*cer, obvs) and GP flat refuses to see him, and tells him to go to A&E. Goes to A&E, definitely not c*cer, but urologist is pissed off the GP couldn't be arsed to see DH and use the usual referral process. Tells him a lot of A&E staff are seriously annoyed with primary care at the moment.

Ha ha " no accountability," you must be joking.

Why don’t people read the earlier posts. It’s not GP’s who have decided the current system but NHS England.

All the GP’s I know (lots with DH being one) have all worked longer (6 days a week) this last year. To start with they were seeing Covid patients without PPE

@Parker231

Why don’t people read the earlier posts. It’s not GP’s who have decided the current system but NHS England.

All the GP’s I know (lots with DH being one) have all worked longer (6 days a week) this last year. To start with they were seeing Covid patients without PPE

As has been said numerous times - NHS England rules doesn’t explain the variance between difference surgeries.

DH’s aren’t doing face to face at all. That’s their words. It’s those surgeries and GPs people are complaining about.

GPs are pretty intelligent people and plenty are now gaming the system so that they maximise their income for the minimum of effort. Our local GP was very keen to get his patients signed up for COVID vaccinations at the surgery. At £12.58 per jab in the arm he could clear £1500 per hour and then, whammo, slam the door and back to telephone consultations.

@JanetWeb2812
How are they making £1500/hr ?
They cant give over 100 jabs in an hour?

[quote Anonmousse]@JanetWeb2812
How are they making £1500/hr ?
They cant give over 100 jabs in an hour?[/quote]
Easy, they do several at once, i.e. several nurses doing them at the same time. At our GP's surgery, they had a large room with 7 or 8 people getting the vaccines at the same time. One GP supervising the whole process.

@JanetWeb2812

GPs are pretty intelligent people and plenty are now gaming the system so that they maximise their income for the minimum of effort. Our local GP was very keen to get his patients signed up for COVID vaccinations at the surgery. At £12.58 per jab in the arm he could clear £1500 per hour and then, whammo, slam the door and back to telephone consultations.

He can give 119 vaccinations per hour? I don’t think so.

By the time checks and double checks are done it’s at least 5 minutes per jab.

Even if he managed to be super speedy and only take two minutes that’s still 30 max per hour.

Easy, they do several at once, i.e. several nurses doing them at the same time. At our GP's surgery, they had a large room with 7 or 8 people getting the vaccines at the same time. One GP supervising the whole process.

He’s still not clearing £1500 then is he, he’d have multiple staff to pay

Easy, they do several at once, i.e. several nurses doing them at the same time. At our GP's surgery, they had a large room with 7 or 8 people getting the vaccines at the same time. One GP supervising the whole process.

Sorry I misunderstood as 1 person would be earning 1.5k an hour on their own.

In some countries GPs do not need full medical+surgical training, they have a masters (MSc) not a doctorate (Dr of Medicine), so there are many more of them and it is cheaper to train them and doesn't take as long.

If the UK GP system is going down a route where the GP is not readily available for emergency care and is a triager/gatekeeper for secondary referrals then this is what the UK should change to.

He’s still not clearing £1500 then is he, he’d have multiple staff to pay

His assistant (just the one) is already employed by the practice.

It’s been a mixed bag here. I had a fungal infection on my wrist repeatedly misdiagnosed as eczema/ infected eczema over the phone. Countless prescriptions for increasingly strong steroid creams, antibiotics etc. Turns out that steroids actually make fungal infections worse. It took 3 months before they realised what it actually was- by which time the 2” square patch on my wrist had spread down my entire forearm, leaving significant scarring.

I’ve since had a ganglion cyst appear on the other wrist. This is painful and affecting my ability to exercise properly. Snooty GP sent me a message via the portal saying it was a cosmetic issue and they weren’t prepared to help... which I would be more understanding about if my other wrist wasn’t also completely awful-looking thanks to them 🤨

My friend called about her baby last week, who was under the weather with a temperature but has a negative Covid test. They still wouldn’t see her because of the temperature, but prescribed antibiotics “just in case”. I wonder how many pointless antibiotic prescriptions have been generated because of this situation? Normally you have to be at death’s door to be given any!