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.

Would you consider private practice? I gave in and went private for a chronic health condition (migraine) after a year of unproductive appointments with burnt out and exhausted GPs. My private GP had only recently quit the NHS after a period of extreme stress. She said it was unrecognisable from the system she joined many years ago :(

I think you are exhausted and emotionally fatigued and you are (understandably) directing that fear and anger towards those who you do not see as deserving of your time.

It is part of the job though. The irony is that you sound like a great doctor and I'm sure if you were well rested and had 20 minutes to spend with your time wasters you would make a huge difference to their mental and physical health and probably discourage many repeat visits.

Extract from this report on the worried well:

The phrase ‘worried well’ represents a misunderstanding of the nature of general practice in the front line of the national health system, where it is important that patients have a place to go when they have feelings and symptoms that they do not understand. An important part of the GP’s job for 200 years has been to provide reassurance, and this is an implicit and valuable aspect of general practice.

But carpeting is the landlord's responsibility and would assist with insulation. Tenants shouldn't have to pay for carpets and probably don't have the legal right to do it without permission anyway. Even if they're fat and have false nails.

You may be misinformed about relative tax rates: where I lived and worked tax rates were much higher than in UK. (NI is a tax too, of course.)

Of course UK tax rates are relatively lower. This is part of the reason the NHS is so badly underfunded compared with other countries' health-care systems. As Oliver Wendell Holmes is reputed to have said, "Taxes are what we pay for civilised society."

Only foolish people don't support taxation, particularly of those more wealthy than themselves; sadly, however, that describes many of our fellow citizens, as Liz Truss continues to remind herself and us.

Your point about private medicine. I think it better to ration health care, as other scarce social goods, by need rather than ability to pay. Does it then behove me, as a relatively well-off individual, to wait my turn (while donating appropriately to charity, perhaps)? What would you say?

Gosh you clearly know far more than my 10 years of training and 25 years of experience.

Yes, when it comes to thyroid disease then yes I expect I do know a lot more than you do. As do many other thyroid patients I know. We don't want to be in that position, but sadly we are or we end up too ill to do anything. I would not have believed it before I had hypothyroidism that this would be the case. I am still shocked by the lack of care.

@ReneBumsWombats If it's a housing association/council house - no, you don't get the carpets. As I was sniffly told by the woman who signed me up (after I'd spent 25 years in private rentals) 'you get the shell, that's it'. No carpets, no painting of the walls, nothing. In that flat I had to wait 6 months before I had enough to put down the cheapest 'carpets' I could find...which is the faux carpet stuff they use for exhibitions etc. Still cost me nearly 300 pounds to carpet a tiny 1 bedroom flat.

I wish you, or anyone really, would come wipe my arse, would save me about an hour and a half a day

My doctor couldn’t give a toss that I’ve been crapping water and blood (likely piles to be fair) since September after a stomach bug when I was 20 weeks pregnant. Ended up lighter at full term than I’ve ever been and still losing. It’s doesn’t feel like just IBS, I’ve had that since I was 14. Well over half my life. Could be PI-IBS on top of IBS I suppose which would be an absolute pisstake.

I’ve learnt not to bother my doctor anymore after they hung up on me whilst I was sobbing that I can’t leave the house without shitting myself. If I carry on losing weight I’ll be dead soon anyway so that’s one fewer on the books

I have read through all the latest posts on this thread and I am absolutely astounded at the ignorance, rudeness, disrespect and entitlement of some posters.

Just because the OP chose to study a 5-year degree in medicine, (recognised by the General Medical Council.) a 2-year foundation course of general training and a 3-year specialist training course in general practice (in order to help people) doesn't give people licence to vilify them.

It's almost as if some posters begrudge a GP getting themselves a good education. Are they jealous? Or do they dislike this person having (some) perceived control over their well-being? Or do they resent the GP for not being some type of Santa Claus who can deliver everything they want, but won't do it? Or do they have an issue with those they view as "establishment figures" (or worse still shock ! horror ! Tories ?

The only doctors I know who are 90% happy in their work and get 90% job satisfaction are an anaesthetist and a pathologist. I think that says it all.

In 2019 my post baby check was 7 weeks later than it should have been due to GP shortages. It's not this lucrative job that many people think it is and that is pre pandemic and all the stress that has brought. Even the GPs who work part time (Like my Aunt) do more than full time hours often. I try not to bother them too much, I am a fan of the phone consultations, especially since my phone calls over the last 3 years have been either a minor routine child complaint which requires prescription medication but not an in person appointment or for me requiring urgent medication due to a recurring issue. Both of which are much more efficiently handled via the phone. I think the whole system needs overhauled.

SO many passive aggressive comments from the OP. 😥

Ive had (possibly) peri menopausal symptoms for over a year
Menopause is a tough one because it present itself in so many different ways. I have find the best educational tools are through forums dedicated to menopause and Facebook pages.

It's so much easier to discuss specifics with the GP once we've gained abetter knowledge of our own menopause. I found my GP very helpful once I could tell them what I thought was best to try and then discussing the risks and benefits.

I do agree that GPs don't always know everything about everything. I found this when dealing with B12 deficiencies, but once I'd educated myself on the condition, symptoms, treatments, I then found my GP (a different one) very opened to discussing it and agreeing a way forward.

@Bogofftosomewherehot why shouldn't they vent on an anonymous forum? Do you love every single tiny minute detail of your job? It's not like she's saying I work here and I hate all my patients especially bogoff.

Get some perspective

@Thesefeetaremadeforwalking you forgot “borrowed title” 😂. Like you want the fucking historian specialising in medieval costume stood next to you when you clutch your chest and hit the deck in Tesco!

I read it the complete opposite to you. If the OP didn't care so much about the patients that actually NEED their help and time they wouldn't be complaining. It's because the OPs care about his patients that they are so frustrated.

OP YANBU. I know that you know that. It's annoying. I've a friend who is always complaining about feeling ill and tired but she does nothing to help herself. She eats terribly, is massively overweight, never exercises, drinks too much and doesn't think any of these things might not be helping her health.
I know it's hard to change habits and to lose weight etc but she doesn't even acknowledge as an issue.

Well at least it has revealed that no-one need worry that she or he is their GP

Just out of interest OP, have you ever looked at the 'self help' materials available from official sources, or tried to use any of the alternative lower tier sources of support like 111, walk in centres or pharmacies, and noted just how many times the advice is to consult your GP? It's so difficult to access GP services for many people, they do try alternatives , but most roads lead back to 'see your GP'. I think its unfair to expect lay people to know the difference between minor problems and issues needing medical care, when all sources of information urge caution and getting things checked out.
Its also unfair to blame your patients for the lack of capacity in health services; or for the increasing health anxieties in people who've spent the last two years being told they risk death simply by leaving their homes.

I don't how it works in the UK because I'm in Ireland and like previous posters have said we pay for our GP visits but can you change GPs there or are you stuck with the same one? I know in your situation here if I felt I wasn't being listened to at my GP practice I would move to another.

DM grew up with the NHS, then moved to Ireland where she qualified for a medical card so she's never had to pay for a single appointment in her life. And it shows.

In Ireland, if you are on benefits or disabled, you typically qualify for a medical card and free GP /hospital visits, otherwise it's €60 for each appointment with the GP or €100 in A&E.

So that means when I get a sore throat, I reach for the strepsils and paracetamol and if it's still sore in a week, I think about going to the GP for antibiotics to shift it. I know my own body. I know when it's a regular cough /sore throat or something that feels different and therefore warrants investigation. I'll still wait a few days if I've vomiting /diarrhoea to see if it's a simple bug, and then have a chat to the local pharmacist for any OTC remedies to try before I splurge €60 quid for a GP to tell me "yes, there's a bug going around, that's what you have, plenty of fluids and rest, bye!"

DM's sore throat has her trotting in to the GP the very next day. So many times I've met up with her and she's berated me for not going to the GP for a cough that I've had for less than a few days and every time, I patiently explain that in order to attend the GP, I need to pay €60, plus take time off work, and pay for whatever medication I get prescribed into the bargain. And every time, she's shocked and surprised that I don't have a medical card. And further shocked that I don't get prescribed OTC meds so it's 'free'. It's not fucking free. I pay for my own health care AND I pay taxes that fund the health care of people who can't afford to pay. And even though every working person pays for their own healthcare, I can't say that our HSE is any better than your NHS. GP services are pretty stretched in some locations and there's a shortage of GPs too but it's not as dire as the UK seems to be.

Children under 6 get free GP visits which I think is good given that with children you have to err on the side of caution and symptoms can take a downturn rapidly. But when it was introduced, and probably still now, there was an influx of children being brought in for every little sniffle.

But unless the NHS are a bastion of economic efficiency, our example of pay-per-view for GP services probably indicates that it won't put much of a dent in what's needed to overhaul both the NHS and the mindset of the population...

I'm interested how you know he is doing NO FTF appts at all? Do you have access to his appt booking system. Information on his thousands of patients. Access to his consulting room. Knowledge of every single patient and contact?. You can say with absolute confidence then that this is so?

It's tricky. My GP is closed at weekends, bank Holidays, after 5pm on weekdays, and shut from 12.30 to 1.30 for lunch (why they can't rotate lunches, I don't know). This clogs up phone lines and puts immense pressure on hospitals. I think they try and squeeze too much into a very small time frame.

I don’t blame her. She is burnt out and exhausted and trying to defend herself from the posters projecting their previous experiences onto her.

There are over a million NHS vacancies as we speak, majority of which are patient-facing. This figure will keep rising. We are short by around 200 frontline clinicians in my Trust currently. We are haemorrhaging staff quicker than we can recruit them. And those we do recruit are newly qualified and will be broken and have left after 5-7 years on average. This is the same in all other trusts and GP surgeries.

HCPs that are burnt out, regularly treated with disdain, verbally abused and are stressed beyond belief inevitably lose their ability to empathise and even, in some cases, to think rationally. This is a consequence of burn out. It’s what burn out is.

OP, I hope you manage to get out sooner rather than later. Working in the NHS is bad for your health.

This is what being burnt out as a medic looks like, though.

With well-paced appointments with enough time to do things properly, designated time for checking results, patients who aren’t abusive things would be different.

She’s exhausted and also over-stimulated, just trying to get through without a mistake. It’s what the job has done to her, and will be doing to other GPs.

I totally sympathise OP. People have become infantilised and take very little responsibility for their own health these days it seems. However, I feel the nanny state with regular adverts for health warnings (near constant shingles ads these days for example) creates a lot of worried well. The structure of the NHS is all wrong, especially here in Scotland at GP level. For example, I waited six weeks for 'urgent' bloods. I have hypoparathyroidism and frustratingly low calcium and high calcium both give me severe nausea. So I don't have a clue whether to increase or decrease alfacalcidol. Six weeks is a long time to wait, nauseous. I waited. On the day of the bloods with nurse, the waiting room had four of us all to see nurse and all at the same booking time. Was told I would get a call if bloods abnormal. No call so I finally drove up to reception as the lines were busy. Couldn't get told my adjusted calcium over the desk, oh no. Receptionist would have to speak to the doctor. She actually suggested I make an appointment for a telephone consult with the doctor, in two weeks time! So eight weeks of nausea and no idea where I was level wise. I insisted she ask GP if I could have a copy of these blood results. A day later I got them. Calcium was way under range, severely so. This is a dangerous situation for me, heart wise. It's not good enough. None of it.

I'm pretty sarcastic and straight talking in real life. My patients would probably recognise my tone.

I feel your pain OP. I’m a GP by trade but gave up general practice over 2 years ago when I saw where it was heading. I’m still in the NHS and now love my job. I have huge respect to all the GP’s hanging on in there. I hope it gets better for you all soon or you find a place to use your skills where you are appreciated and valued.

Take care of yourself 💐

Reckon some of it is people are so used to immediate customer service in other aspects of their life nowadays and expect the same from GPs, except funding hasn't kept pace and the service is becoming swamped, but people's expectations are still in line with other things they expect immediate customer service for.
I think as well that over the years the NHS have pushed preventative health campaigns that literally tell people to go to their GP. Got a cough that lasts more than 2 weeks? Go to your GP! Need to get up in the night to pee? It could be diabetes, or prostate issues, go to your GP! Those sorts of campaigns definitely weren't being run a few decades ago.