From GP practice managers

[Bagamoyo1]

m.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR2ZqCHbGq9Tn0WtOYD5B8y8CnjF-MjkmH2tAEz42wEArKz-pl0QRb5s9hI&v=3ru4QhVZ2a8&feature=youtu.be

My surgery are generally brilliant however after the fourth attempt at booking a coil removal and them having 'no availability' I did threaten to rip if out myself! Amazingly I was seen the next day.

@Dunlin I'm mid 40's and I don't know if I can carry on like this at all. The workload is horrendous. I'm near to burnout and it's making me think of giving up my career.

I think we're all a bit fed up with being fobbed off and receiving very little in the way of GP services. I'd never be rude to practice staff, but it's not good enough by a long chalk.

I have written to my MP about the totally unacceptable state of GP provision locally. She is a Tory though so she couldn't care less.
Nonetheless I encourage you to do the same, if enough of us do it they might take some notice.

My surgery has been a zillion times better since March 2020. I can do everything digitally without having to rely on a receptionist to answer the phone, forget to pass on a message or pass on an inaccurate msg that causes confusion. It is absolutely brilliant not to have to speak to these rude and heavy handed creatures who are unilaterally rude with only one or two exceptions.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

My surgery are generally brilliant however after the fourth attempt at booking a coil removal and them having 'no availability' I did threaten to rip if out myself! Amazingly I was seen the next day.

Funny that. Pretty much proof IMO, that they are using the pandemic/Covid19 as an excuse to not see people. Sounds like it if they saw you when you threatened to rip your coil out yourself!

@Thisgirlcanrun

“I don’t have my pill prescription - if I get pregnant it will be your fault” Err no love you are the one choosing to have unprotected sex Love how some people take zero responsibility for their actions/consequences/health in general

Yes cos contacting your doctor to request prescribed hormonal contraception you've probably been on for years is taking zero responsibility Also, as a layperson you can have this opinion if you like. The point is that as a HCP you need to understand that some patients have chaotic lifestyles and hormonal contraception could be protecting them from consequences of unwise choices. Even patients with normal lifestyles shouldn't be expected to be celibate! Barrier methods aren't for everyone. Everyone should be able to access basic healthcare and there has been a real issue with that this past year.

@Dunlin

Christ. A video full of people (mostly women) recounting the abuse they routinely receive while doing their poorly paid jobs and every second post on this thread is yeah, but...

Shame on all of you.

Primary care is utterly broken because demand spectacularly outstrips supply. Thread after thread after thread on mumsnet GP bashing and people still don’t realise that things are shit because there are simply not enough primary care appointments to meet the escalating demand. The system is fucked and the people responsible for that work in the Houses of Parliament, not your local surgery. The people working in primary care are madly bailing out a rapidly sinking ship, and they’re getting abuse because their not bailing hard enough, and the quality of their bailing isn’t good enough. Anyone on this thread criticising the service who don't have first hand experience of working in it have zero clue how hard surgeries are working right now. Zero clue.

My husband started at his practice at 8am today. He’s still there now. He’s probably got a year or so left in him working at this pace before he jacks it in. He’s 46.
To be honest threads like this make me wish primary care would hurry up and break, then it can be privatised and I’ll get a husband back who isn’t at work all the live long fucking day, comes home exhausted, lies awake at night worrying about what terrible mistake he might have made because he’s seeing so many patients at break neck speed, and then spends all weekend worrying and feeling sick about Monday coming round again.
We might get an increase in his salary too if it all goes private, which would be splendid seeing as it hasn’t happened for over 10 years in this house.

Don’t bother @ing me with stories of woe about your particular GP surgery not giving you exactly what you wanted, and that giving you some moral justification to feel it’s OK for the poor bloody receptionists to receive a load of abuse.

I agree @Dunlin I have had conversations with colleagues where we have said the pandemic has made us wish the whole thing would get privatised. Patients aren't happy, we're dying on our feet but the patient's don't see that and think we're sitting around doing nothing. I honestly think the NHS needs to be scrapped.

Our GP surgery is still throwing prescriptions out of a window at you, and is locked apart from Covid jab day on a wednesday. The reception/waiting room is covered in hazard tape and looks like a crime scene with all the chairs taped off and outlines on the floor ......

Busy GP's my arse. They appear to be making calls with one on duty a day instead of the usual 5.

The principle person responsible for a fucked nhs is Sir Simon Stephens, former left wing adviser to Tony Blair who was silent during covid until the vaccination programme initiated a success.

@LondonJax

I've never insulted a receptionist. I know they work hard and I've seen some of the rubbish that gets thrown at them.

However...yesterday evening our GPs did an open video call showing the community around the super duper new surgery that opened last October. I've been in twice - once for a problem with my back that needed the GP to exam me, once for a yearly blood check. There was no one in the waiting rooms when I got there and no one in it when I came out - there are three floors in this place. It was like showing a kid around a toy shop then saying 'but you can't come in'.

The GPs opened the mic to people and the number one question they were asked was 'before Covid you offered appointments to people - 8.40am or 3.15pm. We understand why you have to do telephone triage but why can't you offer telephone appointments at the specific times? We used to wait 20 minutes to see you if you were running late. Now we have a call back slot of 5 hours...' The GPs answers - we're working on it.

But it's not rocket science. If Dr X can allow 10 minutes per call, knows when the face to face patients are coming in, I can't see why they can't allow the receptionists to book Miss Y in for a telephone call at 11am, Mr Z in at 11.20am etc.

Everyone is back at work, we can't all just sit around for 5 hours waiting for a call. And, of course, who gets the brunt of the 'why can't you just give me a time' messages - the receptionists.

So whilst I understand and sympathise with the receptionists shown, in our practice certainly, some of their frustration should be aimed at the GPs in their practice and the practice managers should be finding a way to give the same appointment service (albeit over the phone) as you used to get pre Covid. After all a telephone call doesn't involve cleaning a room or disinfecting an area so it's no different to having the stream of people walking into the GP's room as they used to.

I can't work out what is so hard in implementing a telephone appointment time if GPs aren't seeing endless patients. And our GPs couldn't answer the question. Something is going wrong and, yes, our surgeries are letting us down. My DS has had four hospital appointments, two MRI scans, a tooth extraction and three visits to the orthodontist plus three visits to a podiatrist since Covid struck last March. He's seen the GP ... never but had one telephone appointments - with a 5 hour wait for it. It doesn't make sense.

This puts the problem superbly. The recorded message from my practice declares that if you miss your (non-appointment) call you will be treated as though you’ve missed your appointment. It isn’t good enough.

I think that it is a very poorly judged video. As an NHS Nurse, it is not in my name and I still feel ashamed.

There is never an excuse for violence and aggression towards health staff, but the truth is that people have died, are dying currently and will continue to did because they cannot access healthcare.

Our practice now takes a week to turn around repeat prescriptions. (Dispensing practice). Fine if you are organised and don't have other concerns, not so fine for many people who are struggling. And let's face it, it takes the same amount of time to dispense a prescription on day one as it does on day 7. So why not do today's work today and reduce the number of phone calls and frustrated patients who add to your workload.

@HmmmmmmInteresting

The GP was in more ppe than I wear on a covid ward just to assess a joint I was in the room 5 mins max!

I was with you until you jumped the shark with this comment, @Embroideredstars

You know the ppe costs money too? The use of which will take its toll on NHS services as well.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be protected, mask etc but there is no need for full body aprons when your body isn't touching the patient.

Nursing staff and other healthcare professionals are in uniforms with just a silly thin pinny over them to change between patients. They are in much closer body contact with patients. We used to comment at work in the lockdown how we couldn't legally go and hug our relatives and yet give hundreds of strangers the equivalent of a hug every time we were with patients manoeuvring them into various positions.

FFP3 masks are only needed when doing aerosal generated procedures or dealing with respiratory issues or patients actually with covid. They're single use. In a large office for 5 mins and the window open a normal mask is sufficient.

Gloves are no substitute for hand washing and are unnecessary unless dealing with bodily fluids.

I may have been a little crass but appropriate uses of PPE are a real issue, alongside suitable social distancing. So the palaver that was supposed to help people at my surgery the other day ie social distancing in waiting room became more "hazardous" for want of a better word because by adhering to the rule of not crowding the waiting room, the foyer (the smaller space) became crowded and only one receptionist (who was protected by a screen and her mask) who was dealing with a phonecall, didn't open the door to let them in. If one of those people had covid we were more likely to have caught it in that situation than the normal queuing at the desk system giving people a bit of space of course. It seems rationale thought is lost.

My gripe with GP surgeries is that by trying to keep things "safe" from a covid perspective they are making things a lot harder for patients (and staff) with other conditions and illnesses and we should be easing back into more efficient services now numbers are dropping. The backlog of this is the resultant frustration, longer waiting lists for all services, increased costs to the NHS, more numbers of patients with worsened conditions or even dying, poor morale for staff the list goes on and on and I feel I'm rambling now.

I'm a passionate advocate of the NHS. I love my job and respect colleagues in all professionals. I believe "civilitysaveslives" which is a fantastic campaign on how rudeness has a negative and dangerous impact on patient care. However services and the treatment people experience can be criticised and should be in order to improve.

A good message, but a terrible video. The beginning of it gave a totally false impression of what it was going to be saying, and it was hard to get back on track after that. The people's scripts were clearly affixed slightly to the side of the camera so the angle of their eyes was really weird and offputting. It was all very amateur and made the staff look aggressive, rather than the unseen patients.

Shockingly badly done, to the point that it left some of us with less sympathy than we started out with.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be protected, mask etc but there is no need for full body aprons when your body isn't touching the patient.

You misunderstand me. I'm saying I can't believe a GP was in more PPE than you wear on a covid ward. If that's the case then you should sue your employer, because I know the PPE GPs are provided with.

ncgy
I ended up in A&E about a month ago & the paramedics & hospital staff were all complaining about the GPs not seeing people. A good number of patients were only at A&E because they needed treatment but couldn't get to talk/see a GP. 
Wow, that's really unprofessional
But sadly true.

@HmmmmmmInteresting

I'm not saying they shouldn't be protected, mask etc but there is no need for full body aprons when your body isn't touching the patient.

You misunderstand me. I'm saying I can't believe a GP was in more PPE than you wear on a covid ward. If that's the case then you should sue your employer, because I know the PPE GPs are provided with.

My daughter is a sister on what was a covid ward until recently. While it was a covid ward her full PPE was a blue mask, a thin apron and gloves.

My GP was in a PP3 mask with a visor over, gloves and a kind of paper suit.

I guess what a lot of people are thinking is yeah it terrible to abused at work. And lots of people experience it in their jobs. Lots of people in healthcare but lots of people work with the general public. It’s never acceptable.
But that doesn’t mean GP’s cannot be criticised at all. My own little example, my gran is 98 and looks it. She shuffled slowly into the doctors and to the desk. She’s pretty deaf but mentally all there. I was there just to provide a arm to lean on. She’s of the generation who treat doctors like royalty and anyone who works for them. She was so rudely treated I very nearly lost my rag. She is a very old lady trying to see a gp. Can’t be that unusual but it was like the receptionists had never dealt with someone who had a thorough knowledge of their systems. Didn’t warrant death threats but was not acceptable.

No one should be abused for doing their job and I'm quite sure that some GP receptionists may not come across as helpful because they are quite frankly weary of being spoken to like shit.

The receptionists at my surgery always seem surprised (possibly relieved) that I will accept whatever appointment they offer me (I'm have the flexibility to do that but understand not everyone does) and say thank you.

However, that video was awful. Weaponising the behaviour of arseholes to emotionally manipulate patients into tolerating shit GP provision, finishing with "be kind" and the sleight of hand with appointment figures was not as subtle as they thought, I'm assuming it was scripted by Alistair Campbell.

6 million appointments, a break down of f2f, telephone, video and home visits we finish with the information that 3 million of those appointments were with GP's. They have been responsible for administering the lion's share of the vaccines? Not where I live.

Things they don't tell us:-
how many of those GP appointments were face to face?
how many of those face to face appointments were with practice nurses?
how many of those face to face appointments were for vaccinations?
how much extra are they getting paid for each vaccine which they are delivering to the detriment of other services?

It's a tough job in an under resources service but I really don't appreciate propaganda to elicit sympathy.

My GP is lovely and so are the receptionists. I used the e-consult system recently and got a call from one of the other GPs in the surgery a few hours later, and picked up a prescription at lunchtime. All very efficient, and the reception staff have always been lovely to the kids too.

I find the threats of violence and physical intimidation appalling and the actual violence is horrific. I don't think that's acceptable at all.

But I do think someone working with the public in that role should be able to let a statement like "If I die, it will be your fault" roll over them. You need a bit of resilience in a public facing role, especially one that is dealing with people who are often scared, traumatised, in pain, etc. themselves.

Giving this some thought and actually there is only one other occupation I can think of that has come out with similar types of posts on social media and painfully overworked posts on places like mumsnet the last year.

I'm not disputing that they are but the public posts in this manner make me cringe. It isn't acceptable they are treated poorly but they aren't the only ones.

I treat this as I do life, the ones who make the most noise are heard. The quiet ones tend to be the ones suffering the most.

Thank you for sharing this video message. Extremely shocked as beggars belief! I only hope the UK population at large is not so unbelievably entitled, ungrateful and quite frankly uncivilised. Perhaps there needs to be more basic life education injected into these types of troublesome idiots. We are fortunate that much of our hardworking taxation income is invested into a paid for free at point of use shared national healthcare. Perhaps some may see how a blended or pay as you use private alternative (as found in many nations) may be an answer so that idiots understand the basics of preventative health and wellness and not cause unnecessary harm to themselves and others trying to help them. No wonder A&E is sometimes a pantomime these days full of such people causing unnecessary stress on an already overwhelmed NHS. Thank you frontline health professionals and don’t let these idiots get you down!

I think we should make people pay for medical care(obviously they'd pay less tax)
The current system is not working.

Everyone still clapping for our NHS "heroes" who cower at home while people die from everything except covid?

Or do people think it is time to be assertive?

You get whatever you will stand for