GP sheltering since covid running London marathon

[justasking111]

OH raging that our GP working from home since March last year is running the London marathon today is he being unreasonable. He's spitting feathers here. This is the senior partner owner of the building practice

I don't understand why they think it's OK for supermarket staff, bus drivers, pharmacists, etc to work but not them. Perhaps they are more speshul.

No, it's because supermarket staff and bus drivers and even for the most part pharmacists aren''t at the same risk of catching or passing on Covid. You don't go to the supermarket or catch the bus BECAUSE you're feeling ill. You do go to the doctor for that reason.

I do think that drivers and supermarket staff should have had more protection especially in the early stages of the pandemic, and should have been in a priority group for the vaccine; but healthcare staff ARE at particularly high risk, and so are many of the patients to whom they may pass it on.

@FelicityBennett only complain to MP if you're in England. Elsewhere in the uk health has been devolved and is not the responsibility of MPs.

Personally I've seen (and going through) a lot of suffering whilst seeing my GP practice staff find the time to continue with things like practice pub lunch which I find difficult to understand given our surgery is completely closed off to patients, due to the severest of danger covid represents, except those with appointments who must wait in cars outside to be rung on mobile when to approach the building. You cannot under any circumstances be driven there, either by friends, family, carers or in taxis - all surgeries my area do this.

One of the Drs is currently suspended after posting about their holidays on social media after claiming to still need to sheild at home.

It's not all GPs but some people have been severely effected by changes in their practices, again not all practices and when they see all the surgery staff for example, all on a jolly to the local it grates.

@BananaPB support for sheilding has ended, as has furlough. But some of us, myself included are still expected to do so; I'm too ill for vaccine and my condition has rapidly worsened in recent weeks. So yes some are still expected to sheild. However, there's no money or support to do so, so extremely difficult.

@ddl1 I disagree, I'm on daily med collection. The pharmacists are being expected to do far more diagnostic work than before, including examinations like looking at sore throats/uti testing etc. I know every person in the pharmacy has had covid, two were hospitalised because of it. One is off with it now. I was told due to being there getting my meds. I've not had it, but I don't stay inside if it's busy.

So I wouldn't put pharmacists in the same "lesser risk" group.

Literally heard GP receptionist telling people to go to pharmacy because too dangerous to go to GP with cough/sore throat for example.

You know GPs are human, not robots, right? They don't exist purely to work in the GP surgery and do nothing else ever. And that the problem is not the GPs themselves but the lack of funding, so each surgery doesn't have enough doctors so there are not enough appointments. Which is why they are trying to mitigate the impact of covid and people being off. The ones I know are working absolutely stupid long hours, trying to balance seeing and serving their patients with not endangering their CEV patients and also not getting covid themselves because then they'd be off sick and there would be less availability of appointments.

They are allowed a life outside of their job, just like you are - and they haven't had much of one for the entirety of covid.

Re phone and face to face appointments, have you ever looked up the statistics for missed appointments (which is wasted time) for your local surgery? The one I go to is very much still open f2f for appointments that need it, but pre covid the stats were shocking - around 60-100 a month missed.

You cannot under any circumstances be driven there, either by friends, family, carers or in taxis - all surgeries my area do this

How does that work for people who don't drive, don't own cars or need help with mobility?

YANBU if shielding from work, should also be shielding at home. Whilst outdoors, running with thousands of others panting and sweating is hardly distancing. What a joke.

If the GP has been WFH due to need to shield,it would have been reasonable to WFH over the past year. I'd be somewhat surprised to see them at a super spreader event if that were the case.

How do you know he has only WFH?

No, it's because supermarket staff and bus drivers and even for the most part pharmacists aren''t at the same risk of catching or passing on Covid. You don't go to the supermarket or catch the bus BECAUSE you're feeling ill. You do go to the doctor for that reason.

I think that justification is fine when telling people not to come in with any cold/Covid symptoms, but not seeing patients about the myriad other health complaints out there is a bit off in my opinion. Yes, some of them will be be asymptomatic for covid, but that is the same risk accepted by all other F2F workers.

People have always gone to doctors when ill, and they will need to do so again.

@Becca19962014
fair point re MP but complain to the correct person

Re DR - correctly they have been suspended and should be, there are piss takers in every profession and I don’t think anyone would pretend otherwise .

When you say sheltering, do you mean shielding due to a medical condition?

GPs should be doing limited FTF. If the GP can run in a marathon, he should be able to see the odd patient, who self declares as having zero symptoms. I know the runners needed to present a negative LFT. Outdoors or not, runners are squashed together, breathing deeply, sweating, spitting and so forth.

There was a thread a few days ago of a worried mum, whose young ds had a rash or similar on his penis and was told to send photos in.

How does your DH know whether or not this GP has been working from home or not @justasking111? Does he work in the surgery himself or is he stalking him constantly? It's seems very odd that he thinks he knows this GP's personal working arrangements.

@C8H10N4O2 it doesn't. That's the whole point. Very long complaints process and of assessed as suitable possibly a home visit IF your home is suitable.

@FelicityBennett the exact words of my specialist to be clear it was not my intention to suggest that was normal practice. I realise it is not.

Running a marathon is highly different from working in a clinic doing patient care.

Why should a GP not run a marathon?

are there rules against such things?

Is your dh ill, OP?

@KaptainKaveman

It’s the running a marathon whilst shielding so not going into work.

I'm really struggling to understand why the OPs DH is bothered about their GP running the London Marathon.

As if it's any of his business anyway! Tell him get a grip OP!

YANBU.

There were amongst the first to be fully jabbed as well.

@BananaPB

I'm getting sick to the back teeth of hearing people moan on about not getting F2F appointments.

I've read stories on here about people being denied face to face to check lumps. They've been told to send a photo of the lump but make it not indecent when the lump is in the breast.

I’m one of these. My GP told me a new lump in my leg was nothing to worry about after seeing a photo. Getting a face to face appointment here is harder then getting blood out of a stone.

Perhaps the OPs DH has been struggling to get an appointment, or has a long standing condition he has been left to cope with alone and is struggling to do so and been told, as people in my surgery with long standing conditions have, to manage until the risk has gone away (currently until summer 2022), our perhaps he had routine care cancelled beacause this GP told him they must work from home via telephone and there isn't anyone else to see him (only one GP in my county has completed training in my conditions).

We do not know his circumstances.
He might of course just be a git.
But I suspect there's more to it than that.

@BananaPB

I thought the shielding programme had ended ?

It has but some CEV, like me are still WFH and avoiding socialising. The risk is higher now due to people not wearing masks, the new isolation rules etc I'm waiting for jab 3 and 4

The gps were FTF yesterday for the first time en masse to administer the flu jab.

The surgery gets additional payments for giving the flu vaccines. Money must reduce their vulnerability.

You and your OH sound thick as mince.

How do you know your GP has been shielding? I would have thought that's quite confidential information. If you mean you now can't get a FTF appointment very easily, that's a different matter. In my experience since Covid GP surgeries are now run quite differently, some consequences of that are good, some are bad. eConsult means that you might not get a FTF appointment if you don't need a FTF appointment. Some ailments can be sorted out by phone or email. That's quite reasonable, and an efficient use of resources, when due to many years of underfunding, efficient use of resources is essential. My GP has been doing this, and when I have had to have a FTF appointment, I have been seen, with the GP ringing to arrange it, which tbh was better than the previous system where you'd be on hold on the phone for ages trying to get through. I think a lot more GP duties cab now be done from home, which is fine. I have hears anecdotedly (I've no idea if there's truth behind it though), that it's been very difficult for some people who needed a FTF appointment to get one. If that's the case, then patient complaints are warranted. I do get the impression however, that some patients would just like a FTF appointment, but have been triaged and don't really need one, and gave got cross about it. Ultimately, in Tory Britain where efficiency and cost cutty measures rule, we don't have the luxury of that kind of service, unless we go private. Welcome to the two tier health care system.

This is no different to anyone of the other millions of people who are still insisting on working from home yet running the marathon today/ going to the pub / weddings / out for dinner / holidays etc etc

WFH has created a population of work shy hypocrites

I have a friend who works for the NHS, doesn't have the luxury of working from home unfortunatley who is now seeing patients who's illnesses are no longer treatable but 'managable' because the lack of proper GP appointments has delayed their treatment.

I think the knock on effect of purely remote GP appointments is going to have devestating effects for the British public for years to come.

But its nice to know that even if your GP cannot administer care effectively he gets to go out for a nice jog at the weekend.