To wonder why I've been refused a blood test?

[NotAHouse]

Impossible to get a speedy doctor's appointment at my surgery, so I filled in the online form asking for my iron levels to be checked. I've been feeling dizzy for months and headachey with low mood, and I've had low iron before.

GP has responded today asking me to schedule a routine appointment instead. None available for a month. Why? I've told them my symptoms, I'll just be repeating the same thing over the phone in a month. I've booked it but not thrilled.

Are they now cheaping out on blood tests or could there be some other reason?

Blood tests are expensive and not necessary if you understand the problem. Why not take iron tables or ask the pharmacist. Self tests are available via the chemist.

Because the OTC stuff is not as strong as the stuff I have previously been prescribed. However I don't know for sure that's the problem, hence wanting to check the levels. I thought doctors hating people self diagnosing?

It's because you may need other things than iron checked. Low B12, Vit D, thyroid condition etc can all cause symptoms.

Then why can't they order a test checking those things? They've done it before.

I appreciate no one here really has the answer but I suppose I wondered if it was new national cheapskate NHS policy.

I doubt it's to save money - surely a blood test costs less than a face-to-face GP appointment? There are numerous possible causes of your symptoms. I imagine the GP wants to review you properly so they can organise all of the appropriate investigations, rather than you having to have two sets of blood tests if the iron isn't responsible.

It won't be face to face, it'll be over the phone.

I would have thought the blood test request forms were for people on lithium and similar things where they are required to do an annual blood test and a receptionist would just need to check the date of the last one to approve it. Otherwise people could apply for all sorts of gratuitous tests (or test for the wrong thing entirely)
Secondly the over the counter iron tablets are literally the same ones a GP would prescribe without a £10 dispensing cost to the NHS. You're thinking of the on-the-shelf iron tablets which don't require you to speak to a pharmacist.

Just do medichecks if you want to diagnose yourself. Your GP will want to make sure you get the right tests and/or treatment.

It's not urgent though is it? You say you've been feeling like this for months. I don't think your GP was unreasonable to ask you to book a routine appointment.

Could you get into a well woman clinic @NotAHouse ?

Have you been prescribed Ferrous Sulphate before? You know you can just ask for it in the pharmacy? No prescription required.

Just go to a pharmacist and chat to them - they'll sell you what you need. If you're still having issues after a course of iron, you can pursue a blood test.

But I wouldn't faff around waiting for blood tests unless I had to. Why has it taken you this long?

🙄

You can order 200mg iron tablets online, I get them this way for iron deficiency. I'd just try that and see if symptoms improve

You can buy blood test of you want I've used Forth and they were good. G P won't prescribe from the results though. They were £100.

I bet it's that once you've contacted them and told them your symptoms, they're medically liable if it turns out you actually have something really nasty that could've been picked up in a proper consultation. So I guess they need to offer to see you in order to properly evaluate you, because if they just gave you the blood test you asked for, you went away happy with that, and then you died of something related to your symptoms that they might have spotted if they'd seen you, they'd be in the shit.

Care to elaborate?

Its all about money and not your health unfortunately. Can you afford to go private or see a private GP?

I imagine they are expressing their surprise that the OP claims to have been feeling dizzy for months, but hasn't actually bothered trying a supplement that she can buy from the pharmacy yet.

I think symptoms like this should be investigated, but I also think that adults have a responsibility to apply some common sense and use over the counter medications in the first instance, seeking additional advice / tests from the GP when it becomes clear that it is needed.

They're seeing her in a month. If it's that bad, she'll be dead by then anyways.

Or she could just throw herself off a cliff Monty Python-style and save everyone a load of time and money?

Ffs.

You've put this on AIBU, @NotAHouse

Try 'Women's Health' or 'General Health' maybe. You'll just get fuckwits on here.

Genuinely - you can start taking Ferrous Sulphate or similar from a pharmacy today for roughly the same price as a prescription (in fact, you could have started months ago), and see how you go.

When your appointment comes around in a month, you will be able to say whether or not it is helping at all, and the GP can also ask things to help inform them whether it might relate to something else, and what sort of other tests might be required.

They don't sound like emergency symptoms. But that doesn't mean they're not something that the GP needs to check out. If they're the kind of symptoms that the GP considers need seeing (whether urgently or routinely), then they'd be foolish not to ask the OP to make an appointment, because it's their medical liability. GPs don't ask people to make appointments for fun.