To ask where have all the GPs gone?

[Lolacat1234]

Got sent to an "urgent care walk in centre" by 111 today because my 3 year old daughter has a high temp and was very unwell earlier today. Got there and very soon realised I had been sent to A&E, there is no such thing as an urgent care walk in centre, it's just another name for A&E. Sat there for 6 hours before deciding she needed sleep and her own bed and that I would try my GP surgery in the morning. Please no comments about I should have stayed, when I left there were 25 people ahead of my daughter and I had already been there 6 hours, she had lost it and was having a breakdown. My instinct said it was OK to leave, dose her up and reassess in the morning.

As I was leaving (I was the 3rd mum with a sick child to give up and go within half an hour) the receptionist just said they can't manage an out of hours service at all because there are no GPs. My friend I was chatting to told me her local surgery has no GPs at all just nurse practitioners and they bring them in from another local surgery if needed. It all seems very scary.

Where have they all gone?

Australia or retired.

Compared to Canada/Australia/New Zealand pay and working conditions
for them in the uk are terrible. Long term either pay has to increase substantially or hours drop, or a combination of the two.

The Australians are paying approx £200k for a 35 hour week. Canadians more, New Zealand less but they reputedly barely work at all there.

No problems like this in my area. 🤷‍♀️ My GPs are hardworking and usually available for things they need to sort out.

Often urgent care and A+E are in the same building/waiting room but are seen by different members of staff. If you think theres no such thing as urgent care and walk in centres, you’re badly mistaken.

Who said you were 25th in line? With a triage system you’re not behind everyone who came in before you.

Australia.

They left because of all the constant complaints and the working conditions. Most have gone to Australia for more money and better life style.

Don't blame them

They've left because no matter how much they work people are still not happy and don't appreciate our NHS. I say this as an admin worker in a GP surgery.

Quite a lot have left - over 1,500 since 2017 and quite a lot of others have moved to part time because of workload and burn out. On average each GP surgery has 2,500 more patients than in 2017.

The receptionist said there were 25 people in front of me, the doctors do try to see the little ones before but no guarantees and probably likely to be another 3-4 hours. This was after we had already been there 6 hours. There was literally no differentiation between the two, no signs to an urgent care centre just literally A&E. everyone being triaged in the same place and doctors coming out the same place calling people in just the same. I didn't think we had problems in our area but sad to see it has come to this now.

Early retirement, abroad due to brexit or better conditions elsewhere or on sick leave due to the massive stress

Govt has known for years that they weren’t training enough doctors but still kept heavy quotas on places. The Tories have been underfunding the health service since 2010 with the intention of winding it down and breaking it up. It’s all planned.

Also not blaming or complaining - just feel very sad and scared that this is the experience now when trying to access an out of hours GP service in my area. Only 6-12 months ago 111 would send you to a local cottage hospital with a locum doctor and you were in and out with antibiotics within a couple of hours sometimes less.

Lots left after Brexit and haven't returned. I think we have a 4,000 loss of overseas GPs who haven't returned and are working overseas. This combined with our National shortage of doctors in training.

They’ve legged it. We get free treatment and abuse it. Lots of people wouldn’t bother with minor ailments if you had to pay for treatment, also more likely to hang around if you’ve paid a fee.

A friend of DH - one is a professor, the wife a G.P have gone to Australia. She initially didn’t enjoy it, took awhile to secure a job (had her own practice here and it was her DH who was headhunted) presume she went on a visa. Loves it now.

And the Tories in their wisdom have cut med school placments by 25% this year. I'm not a Labour voter (well, not since the Iraq war) but when the Labour party left office in 2010 the NHS was rated the best value, most efficient and effective health service in the world on most measures. Remember this in the voting booth op, we get what we vote for.

Demand has greatly increased. Many have retired. Foreign doctors are not coming anymore as the job has become so awful.

About 50% of my medic friends (I went to a university attached to a teaching hospital) have gone to Australia, because they were so scunnered by the pay and conditions in the UK.

Can't say I blame them.

It's a hellish job now, so any who can are retiring, retraining or moving abroad. Demand enormously outstripping supply, and dealing with angry, abusive patients every day who are unsurprisingly angry that we can't offer a better standard of care. I've only been a GP for a few years, and after all the years of dreaming of and working towards this career, I think I'm going to need to get out too. I can't do this for another 30 years.

The tories flung a good few doctors out of the country for not being born here.

They’re also working fewer hours, “full time” GP is not sustainable and involves working utterly unsustainable hours leading to burnout and family break down. Many more now work less than full time, which (still equates to full time in most other languages). And even if they did want to work more the current pension tax situation leads to people owing more tax (bills of 1000s) than they’d earn doing the work. Plus junior doctors aren’t entering GP training.

I have a theory that the government have cut med school placments because they know they've lost the next election, but the election after that, when theres a fall in new doctors numbers, they can point the finger and blame Labour.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62594141

GPs have to be paid much much more than they are now. Ditto Nurses, Dentists, specialists, healthcare workers, just about everyone in health care. Where does the money to do this come from? Everyone in work. So more tax take. Prepare yourself.

I know med students friends of DS they're both off to Australia as soon as they can

Absolutely - I remember 2010 sitting in A&E with my mum when she broke her wrist, in and out within 3 hours. Everything NHS seemed better then, but then you get people saying that's why we are so broke now as we couldn't afford it. I am not a Tory voter never will be they sicken me.

My eldest wants to do medicine, one reason, is because she sees it as her ticket out of the country. I have three children, they all want out of the UK and are planning routes to do this.