To think that people have become completely incapable....

[memorial]

Ok so I'm a GP (yes yes I know I could be anybody) and have been for over 20 years.
But bloody hell our society have become completely and utter incapable of any kind of self care or self responsibility. I have never known anything like the kind of demand we are facing. And I'm sorry most of it is just complete and utter nonsense. Over and over again.
Genuinely ill and needy people are being lost in the deluge. It's absolutely impossible to offer any kind of decent care. And we are losing doctors, nurses and staff rapidly. And we cannot recruit. It's not about pay It's about absolutely ridiculous workload and risk.
Yes the system is broken yes we need more of everything.
But every single thing does not need GP hand holding. It doesn't need 2 page complaints because you didn't get what you wanted when you wanted it.
Some days I just think people won't be happy until I go and wipe their arses for them.
I'm done. And it's not just me.

Sounds to me then like you are saying that there's an overwhelming amount of patients who are suffering, and doing their best not to bother you, and getting lost in the crowd?-so your complaint is about time wasters, not people in general. It's pretty incredibly stoic if you think about it that countless people are suffering terribly at home but not bothering you with it, so as not to be a burden.

Lots of us have lost relatives or friends or seen loved ones miss out on cancer treatment or whatever else because of an overwhelmed NHS. So that's not just you they upset and harm.

I'm with you with the time wasters but I think you ended up wording your post in a way that managed to offend most people!

@memorial I'm sorry to hear you're feeling burned out. Been there (spotted by an expert GP who was bloody wonderful. Supportive and got me out the other side). Please do take the time to care for yourself. If you can't stop for a time, then set some proper boundaries to allow yourself down time. If you don't then you will snap eventually.

My GP practice is absolutely wonderful. Hugely busy but brilliantly organised which makes a massive difference to patient care and GP workload. Calls always answered by a receptionist who then put people on a triage list if needed. A morning and afternoon triage call with a doctor is done over the phone. Anyone needing an urgent face to face appointment can generally get one following that call. Those with flimsy, time wasting or premature requests for appointments are batted back quickly or given a standard appointment which is generally 3 or so weeks out at the moment. There are definitely people who know how to play the system though who I'm sure get through to an appointment when it's not really needed.

I've got a chronic illness and know when I need help, if I ask I generally get it pretty quickly.

I agree that people are very entitled across the board these days, and easily incensed too. It's shit. More of us reasonable people need to lead the way, call out the unreasonable behaviour we see in our colleagues and acquaintances. And to say Thankyou when we receive good service, care and expertise.

Oh and to the posters giving the OP a hard time, well you can all fuck off. Our GPs need support, not another battering. The system is under strain, and if you want to give anyone a hard time, do it to the politicians who have systematically cut, reorganised, sold off, and demonised our health workers for years. We need to demand an immediate decoupling of political control from our heath service.

Yes, some GPS aren't perfect (and some are awful) and yes there are issues in accessing timely care but the OPs points are well made and deserve to be seriously listened to. She's at the end of her tether and needs help and support , not shit-slinging. She sounds like a caring professional who needs the load lightening.

And the person who compared being a GP with working in Aldi? Please take a look at yourself. A good hard look. One of the more ridiculous posts I've seen recently that encapsulates the sheer ignorance of the value and expertise of doctors who literally save our lives.

Social media

I love the NHS and the idea of an American system appals me however we decided only need to make some ch ages and perhaps look to other counties in Europe like Germany for how they run healthcare.

"So now I work in an office and I managed to switch jobs all on my own without telling Mumsnet about it first."

You can be as sarcastic as you like, but she's trying to alert us to a serious issue and only an idiot would dismiss it when it's coming from all areas and levels of the NHS.

I honestly don’t know why you’re getting so much flack OP. People use GPs completely inappropriately - the same as A&E. It must be really hard not to explode every time you have to deal with something that frankly just doesn’t need your input. I feel for you.

Thanks for your hard work OP. Your time and your expertise are valued.

@Phineyj but that’s what we’re supposed to do. If you have an illness common sense should tell you if you throw up once you don’t need a doctor. If you’re coughing up blood then you need help. When did we become so needy that a doctor needs to tell you if you have a bug? If you stub a toe you don’t need to rush for an appointment or A&E immediately ‘just in case’. It’s like people need soothing all the time and then the person who has lost so much weight in a few weeks sits at home not wanting to bother anyone.

I really don't think social media caused people to lose any ability to make decisions and use common sense

I couldn't agree more. Before the NHS was introduced, people took better care of their health because they couldn't afford to be ill.
But god forbid you break a fingernail or have a simple cold - you need a consultant (prefereably while in casualty) to deal with you and no-one else will do
I'm surpised there are any GPs left - not a job I would relish, especially with the abuse they are handed by people who wouldn't know stoicism if it smacked them in the mouth

I don't think you're unreasonable @memorial but you don't seem to be acknowledging the shit show that other people have to deal with in their lives that directly has an impact on your role as primary healthcare.

The fear of losing a job or being uninsured will be driving a lot of those "common sense" appointments. If for example they just take 4 days off work for a terrible sore throat with paracetamol, fluids and rest in most cases it would self resolve and all is sorted. The reality is that most businesses will scoff at the idea that a sore throat is something to call in sick for and expect verification from a GP that the person isn't a malingerer. I've definitely had sore throats/colds that have rendered me legitimately bed bound - because shock horror, illnesses affect everyone differently, but I'm fortunate in not having an arsehole for a manager.

What's worrying about your post is twofold. Firstly that we're losing experienced GPs because the pressure you're facing is unsustainable and the media are perfectly happy acting as the government's agenda pushers to paint your profession as greedy and unhelpful in a bid to push harder for privatisation. The second aspect is the impact your posts will have on those vulnerable reading them. For some of us, the concept of not wasting a GPs time has been heavily ingrained. They're there to help - not to be bothered by trivialities (especially those of us who grew up with the shadow of "stamps" being part of our family's lives). So when you have unexplained pain or symptoms that are ruining your life but don't sound serious when you describe them you just don't go - your posts will cement that approach for people who really need your help.

I'm also dismayed at your attitude towards women's health. My sister had to fight for a cervical examination (took 9 months to be seen) because of abnormal pain and bleeding. She passed away from stage 4 cervical cancer at the age of 31 because "women's problems" just aren't taken seriously. Who really cares that you're passing clots of blood that are the size of plums - you're a woman, put up with it and shut up!

I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think creating a click bait article on an internet forum known for being widely spread in the media is it. If anything it'll play into the narrative that the Tories are happy to see pan out.

2 of my friends were GPs. One of them left a couple of years ago after 17 years because of the stress and pressure, and the other is completely burnt out and trying to find a way out.
I don’t think it’s even comprehensible to most of us just how hard they work and the pressure they are under. One PP even suggested that GPs no longer see patients and just sit behind a desk which is either a completely malicious statement or utterly ignorant.

I do understand what you are saying op re personal responsibility and a basic lack of self-care becoming the norm.

Re the point above about people in other European countries being more healthy, I can’t work out what has happened in this country that is so different. You only have to open your eyes and look around you to see there is a problem (I live in a small seaside town.)

I do think more people need help and support to lead independent lives but the problem is to an extreme that I don’t think I saw 10-15 years ago.

I think partly, people have become more "consumers" than patients, and expectations of the service have changed.

Read between the lines Sandie.

i do agree with you but then GPS signing skivers and piss takers off sick at the drop of a hat for weeks on end for “mental health” isn’t helpful either.

of course mental illness is a thing and needs to be taken as seriously as any other illness but there’s so much of people now just having zero resilience, zero ability to take a bit of a telling off or cope with normal life stressors, coupled with a sense of entitlement that they run to the dr and get signed off for weeks on end for every small bump in life’s road. I see this in my own job all the time.

I do agree there are a lot of piss takers though someone on here posted the other day that her young healthy son had called 111 because he had a sore throat FGS

what do you think has happened in, say, the past 10-15 years to change human nature so drastically? Why were people not so silly and selfish 15 years ago?

Good question.

Whenever I watch programmes on TV from a few years ago the waiting rooms aren’t very busy and the gp had time to have a nice chat with the patient.

The NHS is still relatively young. It arrived just after my parents were born (I'm 46) and only two generations of our family have grown up with it. Human nature hasn't changed fundamentally and it's very human to grow used to something, to become dependent on it, attached to it or take it for granted.

We've also had fifty odd years of relatively peaceful, prosperous and comfortable living in this country (for many, but certainly not all), combined with a dominant political ideology that champions rugged individualism and independence. As a consequence, entitlement levels have gone through the roof.

I'm sorry OP. I think some of the vitriol you're getting on here demonstrates why you must feel the way you do. I wouldn't do your job, and I wouldn't blame you for walking away.

@ParsleyPesto

You don't own MN & you're not appointed thread police, so how about you don't take on an unappointed role.

and for God sake, out of all the posts that disagree with the OP, WTAF would you pick on bloody white cat??

what do you think has happened in, say, the past 10-15 years to change human nature so drastically? Why were people not so silly and selfish 15 years ago?

dr google

I will never forgive the GP who told me my daughter was fine and putting on her hip pain. Turns out it was a hip condition where her foot turned outwards and her femur slipped and she needed a emergency operation which lasted 12 hours and needed pins in her hip. The gp didn't even send her for a xray. A, physio spotted this and called a ambulance immediately..I made a complaint and the surgery just brushed it off. Now my dd has osteoarthritis at age 22. So sorry op I don't really care about GPS now and never will. They always brush you off to get you out the door asap

I love my GP. The surgery has a reputation for running late precisely because they take the time to listen to their patients. They work extremely hard and late - mine called me at 9pm for a telephone consultation for my child during Covid - we’d rung earlier in the day, been triaged and been put on the list. She also made time for me when i didn’t have an appointment and was miscarrying. I couldn’t do what she does. It’s tough. Thank you OP for sticking it out so long. A lot of your patients will appreciate you and be devastated if you leave.

I'm sorry you are feeling burned out, OP. Not surprising under recent circumstances.

There is a lot of uncontained anxiety out there, plus a huge dollop of entitlement.

The medical model (or at least the public's understanding of it) has a lot to answer for though. News stories about GPs 'prescribing' money off energy bills, exercise, social activities etc doesn't help...

Can you take one of the GPs from my doctor's practice with you.
He's useless.