No GP appointment

[DyingForACuppa]

I have a non-urgent-but-totally-fucking-my-life-and-making-me-suffer medical problem.

I have been phoning the GP whenever I can (between work/looking after small children) for days. Most days I don't even get through.

Today I got through at 2pm and was told there's no appointments (not even phone appointments in a month kind of thing). 'You're too early, the next appointment slots haven't been released yet, try in an hour'. I point out I have been trying for days and am picking up my kids in an hour, but apparently nothing can be done. Pick up children then call back, wait on hold for an hour, then an told, 'sorry, all slots gone now, try again tomorrow'.

I am just totally filled with despair. I'm pretty sure that with the right medication I could be fine again, but I have no way of accessing it.

GPs have as much right to work part time as anyone else and many are choosing to because the job is simply too stressful otherwise.

If you want longer access to your GPs you need to pay for it. At the moment there aren't nearly enough GPs to meet service demands 9-5 so how exactly is being open for longer going to solve the problem

The problem is that not enough people want to be GPs and that there isn't enough money to pay the ones that do. There is no solution to this that GPs can or should be taking responsibility for any more than they already are.

PS the fact that you so arrogantly think your google search is the same as 8 years medical training goes a long way to explaining why nobody wants to do the job any more...

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She literally said in her post that she wasn't a Dr! i.e. what she learned through Google is obviously far inferior to what a GP could tell her 🙄

But it's quite insulting to suggest that all the skills developed at med school can be aquired by google.... There's so much more to it than that. Yeh I'll be honest sometimes we do a google search. This is because even with 100 years training we can't possibly know everything. Google is so widely available also it's almosy indefensible NOT to use it if the information is readily available on there. It can also be useful to see what the patient might see when googling a certain term or condition to get a better idea pf their perspective. It doesn't mean drs are unskilled or lack knowledge. It's also important to remember that all specialties of drs will do this you just witness it more in GP land

Can you pay for a private GP - online zoom GP is about £35. Might be worth it in the long run?

Honestly this is why private is so worth it. Maybe not for the major stuff, but for things like this. I had a raging uti and I couldn't sleep, did an online consult with a doctor at 2am! Had my antibiotics first thing the next morning. My ds was ill with various infections, same day treatment and medication in hand. Sorry op, it's shit. I have done the calling at 8am, phoning 100times and given the run around. I've moved to an area now that at least it's marginally better in that children are at least given same day treatment.

In my experience there are plenty of gps they are just all doing private work. No problem getting an online same day gp appointment if you pay. Same for face to face if you are willing to travel. Over the last 6 months DH has had 3 private gp appointments, all booked on the day for later that day. Two were zoom calls, one was face to face as DH was in London and went to one near his work. Two of those appointments resulted in referrals, one for suspected cancerous mole the other for suspected Kidney stones. His work private insurance covered both referrals but not the gp appointments which we paid £75 for each time. He had mole removal and scan of his kidneys within 1 week of the gp referral. It’s true that it’s probably a self filling prophecy that if people go private then gps won’t bother to work for the nhs. But what else are you supposed to do if you can’t even get through on the phone to speak to a receptionist to make an appointment.

Nearly every day now I get a text from our local surgery telling me that they have no GPS & staff, no appointments can be made at all. They can only triage problems over the phone. Where is everyone?

GPs don't know everything. I've been given some dangerous advice by them and a quick Google search (even the NHS says so) proves this. And it's not the first website I come to that I click on. It's usually the NHS website or websites specifically for that condition.

Firstly a caveat. I am absolutely sure that there are GPs working extremely hard and having a horrible time trying to look after their patients in the face of huge difficulties.
The nitty gritty; not round here there aren't. Local surgery is like the Marie Celeste, doctors' car park empty or with one car in day after day. 2 receptionists on duty who must be run ragged. A very good APN if you manage to be one of the lucky ones who gets through on the phone. No econsult, no email. I am in eastern Scotland and the problem seems to be widespread, and even worse in other places. What are they doing?

The problem is that there are too many patients, and too few gps. Also, people making unnecessary appointments which they can self manage (ie buy hayfever medicines) or see order health professionals, eg, pharmacists for minor ailments.

The gps I know work hard, all day every day and several practices have employed advanced nurse practitioners, pharmacists etc, to cope with the workload.

Our surgery has moved appointments completely online, which I think works really well. You email your request, and then someone phones you back either for a phone consult, or to book a face to face appointment. No more sitting on redial, whilst trying to get the kids ready for school at the same time! It's far more convenient for the surgery too, as they can organise their day better, based on all of the requests, rather than a 'first come, first served" approach. I'm not sure why this isn't put in place everywhere.

We have lost three senior HCP (including our lead GP) with over 100 years experience between them this last month. No replacements.
I'm a practice nurse and currently off sick after an emergency hospital admission. My colleague is on planned annual leave. There are no other practice nurses so none available at all this week. We are both also due to retire in four years.
That's the tip of the iceberg.

What actually happened during covid? Did we have a load of EU GPs who decided to go home?

It was always hard to get an appointment before covid, but not like this, and GPs did see people, with an element of telephone triage (for example, we have a named GP so if they weren't available, you spoke to another GP on the phone). But you could book online if you were happy to wait a few weeks and occasionally could be lucky and get a cancellation within a day or two. The difference now is that you can't book a face to face at all, ever (except with a nurse for things like smear tests).

But we do have e-consult and that does work well although the form is overlong and has loads of irrelevant bits.

That sounds good but not so much for people without internet access. Surgeries should offer a choice of contact methods.

Not looking good for the future though, if there are no replacements, no-one wants to take on this type of work.

Hope you get well soon 💐

@Ahurricaneofjacarandas

I'd didn't say I googled I said the GPs effectively do - I've sat there and watched them type symptoms into the NHS search engine 🧐

And we don't have enough money to pay them because many are on over a hundred grand a year

You email your request, and then someone phones you back either for a phone consult, or to book a face to face appointment. No more sitting on redial, whilst trying to get the kids ready for school at the same time!

It still relies on you being able to answer your phone though, which is not a possibility in many jobs unless you have been given a set time.

They're really not and even if they were I'm afraid you have to pay them and/or maintain working conditions to an acceptable standard or there won't be enough people want to do it. I don't know why we find it so difficulty applying this principle to so many professions yet not the ones that our lives literally depend on...

My mother in law had this problem when she was trying to see someone about something potentially serious. She ended up going into the surgery in person and she was given a telephone appointment.

I hope you get an appointment, the whole thing is ridiculous.

The nitty gritty; not round here there aren't. Local surgery is like the Marie Celeste, doctors' car park empty or with one car in day after day. 2 receptionists on duty who must be run ragged. A very good APN if you manage to be one of the lucky ones who gets through on the phone. No econsult, no email. I am in eastern Scotland and the problem seems to be widespread, and even worse in other places. What are they doing?

Same here. Never more than one brand new BMW in the doctors' car park these days, whereas there used to be 5 or 6. Oh and they make all the elderly who can't book online queue outside in the rain (even now) because Covid.

Oh and @Sarahcoggles - the reason you are retiring early is not because of criticism from people who are quite reasonably finding the service terrible. It's because you have an absolutely stellar pension that is exponentially better than anything available outside the NHS. I'm not knocking it - DH is a consultant and the pension is beyond my wildest dreams of avarice - but it really boils my piss when people taking early retirement from GP life blame ungrateful patients. If you had a "normal" pension you'd be working until >65 like us mere mortals, no matter how much you turned your little nose up at the public.

I really think GP's need to get better at reading the room.

They're really not and even if they were I'm afraid you have to pay them and/or maintain working conditions to an acceptable standard or there won't be enough people want to do it. I don't know why we find it so difficulty applying this principle to so many professions yet not the ones that our lives literally depend on...

Because most other people earning those sums work really long hours (including weekends), don't get to pick and choose their days/hours, are not paid exclusively by the taxpayer and don't get a pension that's worth 50% of their final salary for life? I was paid in excess of £100k at one time and had to bill 3 times as much for my firm just to stand still.

The answer to the problem is not shoving ever more cash at GP's: we should look at other countries that manage to have fewer/no GP's and emulate that. It's ludicrous to expect a GP (with no medical equipment and limited access to diagnostic tests) to act as a gatekeeper for most/all secondary care. It's little more than guesswork and causes delay in accessing care for urgent matters, especially with the current hospital shitshow. Hardy surprising it's leading to dissatisfaction on all sides.

Get over yourself.

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If you had a "normal" pension you'd be working until >65 like us mere mortals, no matter how much you turned your little nose up at the public.

Im also fucked off with my job. I don't know how I'll ever afford to retire. Probably have to work until I drop.