To think this is what happens when receptionists are the ones who decide whether or not you actually *see* a GP? (Ear infection)

[lCantHearYou]

Wednesday last week- woke up with an intense pain in my left ear, and assume I’ve just jammed my ear plug in a bit too far, but over an hour later the pain is still there and I can’t hear out of that ear, so I ring the GP surgery.

The receptionist, based on no medical expertise whatsoever, asks what the problem is and unilaterally decides that all I need is a telephone appointment. The GP she’s scheduled the call with is well known in our community for not doing face to face appointments if she can help it and generally having the attitude of just wanting to get you off the phone as quickly as possible.

Later that morning, GP call. I explain that I’ve been having this very intense pain for several hours now that paracetamol isn’t really touching, my ear is ringing very loudly and all external sound is very muffled and barely audible.

She decides over the course of the 3 minute call that since I’m recovering from a cold I’m probably just a bit congested, tells me to take some Sudafed/other decongestant and paracetamol and it should right itself in a few days.

I start alternating pseudoephedrine, paracetamol and ibuprofen, but the pain wakes me in the night every night.

Thursday evening DH, the DC and I travel up to PILs house.

Friday morning, DH and I leave for a long weekend abroad (on the Eurostar, thank god we didn’t fly or I’d probably have at least one ruptured ear drum).

By Friday evening the pain and hearing loss has now spread into the right ear as well. Spend the whole weekend in pain and practically deaf, which kind of spoils things somewhat.

Monday evening, we all get home. 3:00 am I wake up in so much pain I can’t keep still, DH wakes to the sight of me sitting upright, rocking back and forth with my hands clamped over the back of my head. He calls 111 who schedule a phonecall with a Dr… who rings back 3 and a half hours later and says, sounds like an infection, I can prescribe antibiotics or you can just wait and see your own GP. I opt to see my own GP, so 111 Dr puts in notes that I need a face to face appointment.

So we’re back on the phone to the surgery, to the receptionist who’s halfway through saying “I can schedule a phonecall…” when I tell her about 111 Dr’s advice to seek a face to face appointment. Then she relents and schedules one with a different GP to the one I spoke to the week before. At the actual appointment, this GP barely needs to glance in my ears before saying it’s a severe infection, inner ears are very sore and red, lots of pus and gunk and, in her words, “looks incredibly painful”.

I’ve now been on amoxicillin and cocodamol (which I’m alternating with ibuprofen) for 5 days now. I can still barely hear a thing beyond the very loud ringing and the sound of my own pulse throbbing in my ears. All external sound is very muffled and distorted. If I wait too long between taking pain meds I fucking know about it… I’ve taken to sleeping with the cocodamol under my pillow so that when (not if) the pain wakes me in the night I don’t have to grope around on my bedside table to find them. Part of my job involves being on the phone, sometimes for hours at a time, so I have to jam my earphones right into my ears and turn the volume up full, and by the end of my shift (I work very late at night) I’m doubly exhausted from the effort of straining to hear anything.

AIBU to think that if, on that first day, the receptionist or indeed the GP had paused for a moment and thought “hmmm, intense inner ear pain, badly affected hearing, maybe get her in so we can see if there’s an infection”, then I could have started on antibiotics that day and at the very least the infection would likely have been contained to one ear and might even be starting to get better? As it is the receptionist didn’t bother, the GP didn’t bother, and instead of getting better it got considerably worse, the antibiotics are making fuck all difference and I’ve now had almost two weeks of intense pain and hearing loss for no good reason? And AIBU to be pretty pissed off about it?

Sorry for the twilight rant… I’ve just woken up feeling like the back of my skull is being squeezed. Again.

111 gets it wrong too at times. My daughter rang 111 last week for her 7 year old. With symptoms of Increased thirst, urination, bed wetting, weight loss, tiredness. She was also irritable, and complaining of tummy ache.
My daughter was told, it didn’t seem that urgent and to wait until Monday and ring her gp. DD insisted she thought she needed to see a doctor TODAY.
She did see one at OOH who sent her to A&E and was sent through to Resus on admittance, diagnosed withT1 Diabetes and spent two days in critical care.

My own gp surgery has triage by receptionists, it works well, so does the e consult on line service. We always get a call back from the doctor or a face to face appt if they deem it necessary.

Why are nhs patients entitled to get good care?

We all voted in GE's and a referendum to wreck the NHS.

Go private if you want decent healthcare, thats what the UK has voted for since 2010.

It’s incredibly painful, and could be avoided with prompt treatment.
It can lead to inner ear infections, for which you presumably won’t be able to access treatment either.
The (hopefully temporary) hearing loss for a child learning to talk isn’t trivial either.

@walkingonsunshinekat 🙄 billions of our money is spent on the NHS every year.

Its not enough though, we have a massively increasing elderly population, social care has collapsed, GP numbers down pre 2019 - Cameron promised 5000 extra GP's by 2020, we got fewer.

We have consistently voted to run down the NHS, even the Health Sec said a few days ago "Nurses can leave if they want too"

Its no good moaning about it all now.

Errr- “we all” did no such thing.

51.9% of those who voted in the referendum, voted leave.

43.6% of those who voted in the 2019 general election, voted Conservative.

Personally, I voted remain and have never voted Tory in my life (and never intend to) so why do I deserve crappy NHS care?

Why are GPs still mostly doing phone appointments? Our surgery has patients from 3 villages & number of patients hasn't increased. You used to be able to turn up before 10am & be seen by a GP. Call at 8am for afternoon appointment with named GP. It worked well. We are getting a worse service.

*Why are nhs patients entitled to get good care?

We all voted in GE's and a referendum to wreck the NHS.

Go private if you want decent healthcare, thats what the UK has voted for since 2010*

not just conservative government. Blair’s labour brought in the concept of workers privatising, social enterprises and introducing private medicine through the back door.

@OldEnoughToHaveReadBunty Sounds like your online system isn't fit for purpose, TBH. If a doctor needs to cancel my appointment for any reason, I get a notification, not a phone call. I then rebook.

If people are routinely trying to beat the system by booking inappropriate appointments, they should get removed from your books!

@Reallyreallyborednow I don't think you understand me. People should be able to easily book appointments at a fixed time with someone who is clinically trained (not necessarily a doctor). That person can then either treat them or triage them as necessary. My solution is to get as many people booking electronically to see the right type of clinician, so the admin phone lines can be reserved for people who need more support.

Forcing all patients to dial the same number at 8am means those are the sickest will give up and not get seen, and it also disadvantages people who are at work (or travelling to work) at that time. You can't do away with a phone booking line altogether, but you can free it up for those who need it most.

I also do not believe in random callbacks. It's not compatible with modern life.

And I know my proposed system is possible and works because it's what my practice does. It's radically improved my life for the better.

Plenty of concerns can be treated remotely (although sometimes video calls are necessary rather than phone calls). There is nothing wrong with a remote first solution as long as face-to-face follow-ups are available for those needing them.

Given how many people needing an appointment are contagious, remote first is great because it's likely to reduce a doctor's odds of getting ill. And we don't want sick doctors, as otherwise, they can't work and have to cancel appointments. It's for everyone's good that doctors only see ill people in person when there's a clinical need to do so.

Sometimes we will send texts. Sometimes we will phone. It takes an awful lot more than that to get removed from a GPs books unfortunately.

24 euros to consult an English speaking online doctor in Netherlands.
I haven't tried that service, but suspect OP could have got antibiotic prescription filled quickly too, in Amsterdam.

A strategy for anyone in similar circumstances in future.
Ear infections suck. I can't blame OP for being grumpy about it.

My eardrum burst after seeing the GP earlier that day. Never even thought about it, its not a big deal tbh. Plus these things develop over time, if you had seen the GP the first day there probably would have been nothing really to see so you wouldnt have got antibiotics then anyway. If you were managing to go abroad you cant have been suffering that much with it.

If people are routinely trying to beat the system by booking inappropriate appointments, they should get removed from your books!

or maybe, you know, not everyone is computer savvy or know what clinical specialist they need. Some people don’t know medical terminology and might not realise the difference between obstetrics and orthopaedics. Some people don’t realise the capability of nurses now and would always automatically book with a dr as they see anyone else as inferior and not being able to prescribe, diagnose or refer. Or they simply see a convenient time and date and don’t realise they’ve booked the wrong HCP.

the system works for you because you understand how to use it. Not everyone can, particularly vulnerable people like the elderly. My mum wouldn’t have a clue, fil might, if his eyesight was good enough to read a screen. Dh is very dyslexic, not medical, and would absolutely struggle trying to navigate an online system. He does everything by phone.

My Dad died being denied an appointment by a receptionist. I won't go into details but suffice to say I don't think they should triage calls.

OP I went to a walk-in clinic for a recent ear infection. I was given proper advice and treatment after years of recurring infection and being fobbed off by my GP practice. With ear infections they usually only prescribe painkillers the first day or so but then not all of them go away. I was in hospital with a ruptured ear drum as a child and can attest to it being absolute agony, whatever other posters here think it should feel like.

I've bad the morning after pill from a chemist, without a GP....

When I was a GP receptionist many moons ago, a lady turned up to her appointment who had refused to disclose the reason upon booking in. She had been given a same day appointment only because one was available by chance and because she was old.

She turned up with chest pain and the GP suspected she was HAVING A HEART ATTACK.

I know people will defend "I don't need to tell the receptionist ANY medical details" til the end, but in reality, you're just all wrong 😂

Why are they still doing phone calls instead of face to face?

I had a similar situation with my 4 year old DD - not to bore anyone with the details but it involved my daughter being in pain with tonsillitis for two weeks, three separate medical appointments with various practitioners, and countless phone calls where I got increasingly frustrated and cross at being told it was viral not bacterial and therefore didn’t warrant antibiotics. I was patronised by a nurse who told me DD wasn’t in pain (screaming at 4am for fun is she?) and she lectured me on antibiotic resistance.

After telling my GP I absolutely insisted on antibiotics, she eventually got them, and recovered.

Talk about a waste of resources - was it really necessary for me to take up three appointments when one should have been enough?

Why is it so many medical practitioner’s first instinct to dismiss / not believe what we’re telling them?

I book doctor's appointment here in Aus without telling anyone why. I mostly do it online and can choose my same day appointment (and it's free 🤯)

I presume thats at a bulk billing surgery then @PinkPrettyAndPointed ?

And this, folks, is the NHS that we are being asked to pay towards.

You are not unreasonable OP.

No the nhs we're being asked to fund is the one we had a few years ago before the current government massively started undercutting it.

The op still isn't being unreasonable

Very rarely I'm grateful for being immunocompromised - reception won't triage me except for asking the problem and then put me on the doctors list

I did have a nightmare when I couldn't get through over lockdown and had ongoing issues with a UTI. In the end I rang my consultant who delivered antibiotics the same day along with an emergency food box. Couldn't have been more grateful

It is @HiveBee. There are plenty of bulk billing doctors with appointments.

We pay the Medicare levy and the Medicare levy surcharge because I agree with the ideal behind the NHS (free at point of use for everyone) but really disliked the service I got in London.

I also like that in Aus I can go to any bulk billing doctors surgery.

I know people will defend "I don't need to tell the receptionist ANY medical details" til the end, but in reality, you're just all wrong 😂

Well the least they can is actually write the reason on the bloody notes.