To think its ludicrous a GP surgery can prevent vaccination by...

[dameofdilemma]

Deregistering a patient?
Dp has been deregistered (without notice or consent) for the offence of being too healthy - he hasn’t made an appointment in years so they just deregistered him as a patient.

He now can’t book for the vaccine (via NHS, walk-in clinic or GP) until he’s registered again, which could apparently take weeks as there’s a backlog (of fuming deregistered patients).

The reality is many won’t bother continually phoning the surgery (and being put on hold) every day and the vaccine roll out will be slowed. down.

Our GP has yearly checkups for everyone over 60.

As pp said, if you register with a new GP using the online form on their website, it will done in 2 working days approx.

Just make sure you are in their catchment area - their website will also have a tool for checking this where you input your postcode.

@MyDcAreMarvel

Well that was stupid he should have gone in for an annual check up.

Yeah right! I know we're supposed to get one, but I was only offered this when diagnosed with Diabetes. My DH has never been offered one.

Thats bloody awful OP. I still get sent a reminder for my annual flu vaccination by my Dutch GP, and I haven't lived there since 2015.

Deevil - sadly not. Forms filled via the app (the required format) a week ago, still not registered.

I think one of the themes coming out if this thread is how much GP practices vary. Not surprising I guess given they’re it all run by the same entity.

dameofdilemma - sorry to hear that!

How strange that there wouldn't be a set period for an online form to be registered. Especially now that all GPs seem to have the same website template (at least in my area).

Are you in the catchment for any other practices? It might be worth phoning a couple to see if they can register him any quicker. In my town there are a few practices that only take people from certain neighbourhood catchments, but there are a few that cover much larger areas (and bizarrely they are the smaller practices)

I think it's dreadful that a GP surgery can do this without even letting you know.

As for annual checks i don't know anyone who's had a check up with a doctor. You only go if you have something wrong with you. I should have had a check at 40 but I'm 41 now and they still aren't doing them because of covid. I assume I'll have missed the boat now and won't ever get one.

I think the annual check happens in many continental European countries as well as America. Think Australia, NZ, and Japan too?

Annual or Biennial checkups are basic primary care in most developed countries including those with state backed health care.

Britain is unique in having free health care, but would paying a small fee (according to income) be better if it gave us more control?

Its not free though and part of the problem is that the payment model results in it seeming "free" and anyone receiving poor service is lectured that we should be grateful. People haven't voted for a party campaigning to raise taxes for healthcare for well over a decade and its business systems and models are decades out of date.

Most of Europe has state backed health care but the delivery model is different. They elect to spend more but they are also more agile at modernising systems and patient management. People are more likely to be immediately aware of health spending and that may be why many of them support more spending on health.

Free at the point of access is all well and good but in a heavily rationed health care system its not the poor and the vulnerable (who are cited as the justification for the model) who can fight their way in to access services which may be why our outcomes in these groups are worse than many peers with state backed insurance models.

Those blood tests can detect serious, possibly lethal, conditions long before you have any symptoms at all, and can save your life

I’d rather wait until I got symptoms than be messed about with unnecessarily.

@Bythemillpond

Sunflowergirl1

They cannot de register you without getting in contact usually by letter. Is the address correct that they have for him

In the world of doctors and dentists surgeries that doesn’t happen.

Dh had one of his cataracts done and a lens fitted as he is nearly blind about 8 weeks ago. He had the 2nd eye booked in for the beginning of April. He arrived only to find his appointment had been cancelled because he had moved out of the area.
We haven’t moved anywhere.
He has now found out that the GPs surgery have moved him off their books so in order to get his repeat prescription of insulin he had to prove he still lives in the house we have lived in for the past 2 decades.

The thing is this isn’t the first time they have said he had moved.
We even had a visit from the police to check he was actually living in the house he said he lived in.
None of us now have a dentist. No explanation given but apparently we are no longer on the books of our regular dentist anymore.
If we had received a letter we would have put this all right but none of us have received anything in writing. We are left to find out when we try to book a check up or get a prescription or go in for a booked operation

Oh! DH had this problem. There is another man with the same name and birth date, even the same middle initial. He and DH were combined by GP and dentist and DH ceased to exist.

He went in with his NHS number and they decided he would be flagged by his middle name. That seemed to sort it out at both GP and dentist.

@CuriousaboutSamphire just saw your answer.

Well obviously if people pay in very little, they get very little. We paid kind of like Nin here. You pay income tax, social and healthcare insurance from your wage. Like income tax and nin here. It's bit more, uk has quite low outgoings from wages.
If you are not employed, you pay like self employed or state covers you.

It's not like everything here is free as well. I pay my glasses and lenses, which ok but I also have to pay an eye test (my mum was bit about that), dentists fees are 😳, pay for prescription (though I had like one in last 4 years so not that bad lol). At least for that more money there I could get gp appointment. And gyno and others. Imagine you can just go and book an appointment because you have pain around your ovaries. That's it. For that I would happily pay more here. The system needs more funding, that's well known.

Lots of countries have similar healthcare system afaik but obviously it has to be paid into.

you could walk into my surgery and those in our area and be initailly registered within 2 days, takes a month for your medical data to tanfser over but we've had lots of people register just so they can get a vaccine

Oh! DH had this problem. There is another man with the same name and birth date, even the same middle initial. He and DH were combined by GP and dentist and DH ceased to exist.

Sorry, that made me giggle because we had situation in a family with same names (different dobs tho) and the doctor kept pulling out wrong files😂 They just looked at me with "yeah, I don't think you had kids 20 years ago" when I was 20 and just grabbing the other file😂
A while ago

You don't need proof of address to register with a GP. The surgery I'm registered at now tried to pull that one with me, so I opened the NHS website on my phone and showed them the page where it says I don't need proof of address to register with a GP. They didn't like it, but they registered me.

I had this happen to me earlier this year. Only found out when my age group was allowed to book appointments for the vaccine. I was registered within 3 days by my GPs' practice but only because I made a fuss. I received an apology from the Practice Manager who informed me I had been deregistered following letters and phonecalls being ignored which was rubbish, I received nothing from them.

Deevil- the three practices in our catchment are all now run by the same company, with the same registration processes. Confirmation has to come from the practice itself, not online.

@minniemomo

They send you check up invitations at 40&45. At least where I lived. Exh didn't arrange either, and hadn't been sick so they wrote to us to check he still lived there, he did and they didn't deregister. People move overseas or within the U.K. and don't change their dr

I’m 52 and I’ve never been invited for checkups. I’ve asked for them following the deaths of family members at young ages from conditions that would be picked up by medical but always refused. I’m now looking into have a private checkup for my own peace of mind but it’s expensive.

😁

And I agree with you about the NHS stuff. Just can't see the obviously needed changes happening here.

If I could pay a reasonable fee to get regular ME/CFS check ups, to properly discuss the impact of that and 14 syllables if anemia I would, happily do it. But it is hit and miss with GPs and my current one, sympathetic as she is, has no interest and so I just plod along!

But I would also worry that my stepping out for some things would only help to create a tiered system, that the savings or cash I would generate would not help improve local or national service.

Show me a political party that would restructure the NHS and I would vote for them in a flash, twice if they also had a shot at education!

Primary Care Support England (PCSE) are know for deregistering "ghost" patients without even telling the practice.

No GP practice wants to deregister a patient unless they are vile and abusive or violent. We love a healthy patient who never bothers us - the money we receive for them evens out the money for those patients we see every week and who phone 5 times a week.

If the practice deregistered you it is because they wrote to you and did not respond. I very much doubt that no letters were sent first, - more likely it was not understood the impact of not being registered, A practice will be accused of fraud if it retains patients who do not respond to requests for contact.

@MyDcAreMarvel

Well that was stupid he should have gone in for an annual check up.

What are you talking about, who goes to the GP for a annual check up. I can just imagine my GPs face if I bowled in fit as a fiddle a requesting my "annual check up"!

If people had annual checks, the NHS wouldn't be quite so stretched.

Completely agree, but there is no capacity. They're stretched to the max just dealing with all the existing and documented medical issues and emergencies. They can't not deal with those so they can put preventative measures in place. There is no give in the system at the moment, it seems to be in reactive, crisis mode all the time.

We need more trained GPs, at the end of the day.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

I love people in UK being mindboggled by annual check ups👀 Pretty standard thing in many countries. But yeah *@MyDcAreMarvel*, not here unfortunately

No ones mind boggled by the concept of annual check ups. Just mind boggled by the comment that the OPs husband is stupid for not going to his "annual check ups" which is not a thing in the U.K. As others have pointed out getting an appt when you are sick is hard enough. There's no way the stretched NHS would be offering annual check ups.

Prepare to be told to stop 'slagging off GPs' despite having a perfectly sensible and serious complaint...

And LOOOOOOOL to 'why didn't he go to his annual check-up'...

I think he should be able to get his vaccination at a mass vaccination centre rather than at a GP surgery.