To think that a wait of 46 days for a routine appointment to have a call with a GP is outrageous?

[MrsKebble]

I saw a consultant who has said I need to start some gastric meds. He wrote to my GP this week and the practice have now told me that the first available telephone appointment to discuss this is 46 days away - is this not bloody ridiculous? Referral was Oct, procedures were Feb, results were March and now this. Why not just start me on the bloody meds?

My consultants don’t ever do a prescription for me unless i actually see them in hospital, they just send a letter to my gp.
Gp then puts in on my repeats.
I’ve never had to have an appointment with my hp to discuss what one of my consultants has already decided to prescribe!

This is why I was not out there banging on my saucepan during Covid. It’s a bloody disgrace. A lot of the GPs at our practice are part time. Good help you if you fall ill on a Friday. It’s easier to die.

Clarabe1
But it’s not about whether an individual GP or HCP is part time. It’s about the overall number of GP/ HCP man/woman hours that are resourced for the population. It doesn’t matter if it’s X working 40 hours a week or Y and Z both doing 20 hours. The overall number of human- hours resourced to provide the service for that population is inadequate to meet the needs of that population.

It doesn’t matter if Dr whoever is part time.

It takes years and lots of taxpayers money to train a doctor, so if lots of them work part-time there's bound to be a shortage.

But you can’t force people tp be employed more than they want to be. We don’t have an enslaved society. I’m sure most were full time and had to reduce hours to manage a family life. Should they not be allowed do that?!
Try to remember that part time workers are only paid part of the time!
Ridiculous

Also it doesn’t matter if there are lots of doctors/ HCP if the government is only funding X number anyway.

Almost 800 medical graduates do not have Foundation Year posts this year. Lots of personal expense to go to university too, not just taxpayer. And then NHS does not want to employ them for FY.

It’s about an underfunded health service, not adequate to meet the population.

Not about whether X is working however many hours per week.

@MrsKebble

The GP has been told which meds to issue by the consultant.

Then politely request for the meds to be issued now. There is no excuse for this unnecessary delay. It's probably just a clueless receptionist. Does your practice have E-Consult?

It is totally shocking especially when a consultant has confirmed what is needed. Are you sure you can't get over the counter meds in the mean time. ?

The NHS is truly struggling, had gp referral for mri re joint problem three weeks ago. Today got letter offering appointments of which the first available is early May. I thought that was quite good until I realised it was a telephone triage.I will be amazed if they can diagnose my joint problem from10 miles away but I suppose a box will have been ticked saying I’m being treated.

Off to ring private clinics to see how much the recommended mri would be.I’m lucky I can do this, the majority can’t. It’s a mess.

@iamjustlurking

It is totally shocking especially when a consultant has confirmed what is needed. Are you sure you can't get over the counter meds in the mean time. ?

Yes I am positive. I am hoping to hear from them today as to what will be done to resolve this.

I think that there are certain arrangements between hospitals and practices as others have said eg for this consultant I had to have blood tests and I had to go to the hospital to get them done. Our GP practice will only do blood tests for hospitals if they are for oncology.

@Clarabe1

This is why I was not out there banging on my saucepan during Covid. It’s a bloody disgrace. A lot of the GPs at our practice are part time. Good help you if you fall ill on a Friday. It’s easier to die.

GP's 'part-time' often consist of 3 -4 shifts per week, 10 hour+ days.

There are fewer and fewer GPs--burning out the ones that are still working is really not the way to go.

A half time GP works flat out for 36-40 hours a week, having to be 'on it' the whole time .
The reason there are no appointments is chronic underfunding, lack of staff, incessant sick leave due to covid and increased demand following the pandemic.

The prescription issue should be fixable.
Locally certain machinery is having to be kept for covid patients ie CT scanners/mri scanners so there is a lot more pressure on those resources.There is quite an overspill of strain into the private sector also which will soon be less accessible as the nhs is trying to cope with the backlog of routine appointments and treatments.

As others have said the consultant is more than capable of providing an initial prescription, GP are not junior to them . NHS England guidance suggest that initial script comes from person responsible for it and then can be continued. It is the prescriber that carries the flak so if it is an unusual medication you may find that ps why the GP wants to speak you about it.
Some medications have to be started in secondary care.
The sheer volume of these request per day is is reason why it can so delayed .
It is clearly not appropriate for you to have to wait this long though for medication. If your GP cannot offer an earlier appointment then ring the consultant secretary.

@FelicityBennett, the problem is that hospital pharmacies are notorious for their waiting times, and the scripts can't be filled at a regular pharmacy.
DC1's record waiting time was five hours - far from ideal if you're feeling unwell.

Why has everything changed so much all at once. I don't think doctors surgeries will ever go back to how they were but everything is all so sudden. Before covid it was fairly easy to see a doctor, I don't understand the drastic change.

As loads of other people have said the consultant needs to issue the prescription. Hospitals can issue fp10s (green prescriptions) they just don’t want to as they cost more so they insist on hospital prescriptions. The hospital has also been paid by the nhs to supply the initial prescriptions. They are trying to pass the cost onto the GP and it’s disgraceful. Complain to the hospital not the GP.

Works dumps like this are the reason there are no GP appointments. This shouldn’t need an appointment and is a waste of time. A gmc registered doctor has seen you and has a duty to start the treatment themselves. It doesn't need a GP appointment - if everytime anyone saw a hospital doctor they then had to see a Gp to get the meds the system would be unsustainable. The consultant needs to give you a month of meds and then write to the GP asking them to put it on your repeat list so you can order it when you run out in a month.

The standard secondary care contract requires the history issue the first months meds if the meds should be started within a month.

Having worked in hospital medicine the reasons why prescriptions aren’t being issued in outpatient clinic are usually:

1. Encouraged to do hospital pharmacy scrips - cheaper for hospital, hated by patients because they have to come to hospital to gets meds if it was phone and/or wait for hours at hospital pharmacy
2. No system for electronic issue of fp10s in hospital so patients have to come and get the fp10 which they don’t like if it was a phone consult
3. No fp10 pads anywhere as there all locked up as there more expensive
4. Complete non understanding that the letter they are dictating will take 10 days to type and 10 days to check and then sent to GP where it will join the several hundreds being revived that day and might get read a week later….
5. Hospital dr dosent think it’s urgent patient gets meds that month but patient does

So in conclusion

1. Hospital is trying to save money by doing hospital scrips
2. Hospital has not developed/paid for a computer system to do electronic prescriptions
3. Patients loose out

And the GP who has paid for a clever computer system and does issue expensive fp10 and isn’t being paid for this initial prescription gets blamed for this show

Your average surgery probably has 10-20 patients registered with them having a hospital appointment per day. If they then all needed a GP appointments to start the meds discussed in the hospital appointments then half of one GPs day would be spent doing consultations to discuss meds that a hospital doctor has already discussed - clearly this is bonkers and needs to stop.

Email your GP practise manager

Why On earth, if you’ve seen a consultant and he’s asked you to be put on meds can’t they just prescribe them? I mean why do you need to speak to the gp? Seems a total waste of time for you and the dr.

I had an endoscopy last year and similar to you the gastro consultant sent an e consult thing to gp to prescribe omeprazole, so the dr did and the receptionist called to ask which pharmacy to send it to and then I picked it up - simple!! there is no reason why I’d need to speak to the gp, he’s the middle man. You don’t get scripts from hospitals here if you’re an outpatient, hospital pharmacy is too busy.
Hopefully you’ll get your meds soon, def speak to consultant secy and chase this up if you were meant to have it you should be on it, dr can follow up in 46 days to check how you are getting on maybe? Madness it really is

@eightlivesdown

It takes years and lots of taxpayers money to train a doctor, so if lots of them work part-time there's bound to be a shortage.

Not to mention that previously the BMA refused increased numbers of medical school places and refused new medical schools.

@Qazwsxefv

Your average surgery probably has 10-20 patients registered with them having a hospital appointment per day. If they then all needed a GP appointments to start the meds discussed in the hospital appointments then half of one GPs day would be spent doing consultations to discuss meds that a hospital doctor has already discussed - clearly this is bonkers and needs to stop.

It's part of the bigger fiasco of the NHS "internal market", fragmentation etc., where doctors are working to their own artificial budgets rather than the benefit of the patient/NHS.