To think this is disgusting - GP charging for form

[FrostedFancy]

GP surgery insist I must pay £40 for completion of a form from school to request online learning for my DD (14) who is suffering from MH issues due to being diagnosed with a serious health condition.

AIBU to think this is absolutely disgusting to profit from a child with medical condition and mental health issues needing access to an education?

Form literally would take 5 minutes to complete.

It’s standard. My GP has a poster with charges for various forms and letters in the wall.

@littlebopeepp234 makes a good point. These are legal documents. GPs take out additional insurance to cover private work, they are responsible for each and every one of these “5 minutes” jobs.

You haven't answered the question re: DLA. If you aren't claiming, get the form filled in. And yes, it's a bloody long form, I know. But accessing the right funds will enable you to cover things like this

They won’t go into the minutiae of how that person should do their job. They might refer to occupational health. Or for a child with various educational needs to , don’t know, the education specialist.

YABU - this is not funded GP NHS work. In reality you should have enough evidence of your child's condition for school to facilitate online learning. It is MORE than a tick box. Your child wont be the GP's only patient. They will need go review notes etc. Should NOT be done on NHS time as this is not part of their contract

Writing a sick note for depression and anxiety is not the same as being diagnosed with an actual medical mental health condition where a patient has to be referred and seen by a specialist psychiatrist, mental health worker, CAHMS etc so that argument does not stand up. Yes they can write sick notes for general depression and anxiety and maybe other mental health conditions where a patient has been DIAGNOSED by a specialist in that area and the GP has written factual correspondence filed in the patient’s records that have come from that specialist stating a patient’s diagnosis. A sick note is a legal document and is written based on FACTS and because they have either assessed that patient or they have factual information from a specialist. They do not magic things up out of thin air

I do love posts like this where people who have no experience in general practice decide that a doctor can do this, that and the other lol

My sons school asked for a letter from the gp when my sons appendix ruptured and he had to have an emergency operation. 6 week recovery the Dr said but he only had 3 weeks off school in the end. School wanted a letter, like a sick note, from the doctor. Doctor told me to tell them that they should be fully aware that doctors do not do sick notes for children. I told them and suddenly it was not needed.

the more you post the more it is clear you are taking your frustrations out at the wrong point in the system.

I have really noticed in this thread - in the most respectful possible way - such a lack of knowledge about what doing some of the most frequent/seemingly straightforward tasks in healthcare actually entails, in every sense - time, legal ramifications, insurance, etc. - which is always interesting when accompanied by a sprinkling of implicit "but it helps with xyz which is your arena therefore you should be willing to pluck time out of thin air to do it for free on top of the overtime you already put in just to complete the tasks you are actually contracted and paid for as doing so just within contracted working hours is frequently outright impossible" 😅

I do think it’s ridiculous but I’m not surprised, really exemplifies how broken the National Health “service “ is

I’ve read all of the posts and I do now understand why they need to charge but charging £40 is absolutely extortionate!

£40 is not extortionate. As others have pointed out, DLA can help towards this.

It’s normal
I’ve just had to approach the gp for a letter/ copy of a diagnosis for my son’s adhd.
this has come from the exam board via school so he can have extra time in his GCSEs ( school are saying they need ‘proof’ - he’s yr 11 diagnosed yr5. So what they have done with the proof I supplied at yr7 I don’t know )
Gp practice want £30

Free at the point use has to end universally.

I wonder how many special considerations would be needed if people had to pay for it.

Generally professionals do work ‘overtime’ for ‘free’. Certainly solicitors, accountants etc. Those working in careers of similar standing to that of a GP. Those sort of jobs don’t involve clocking in and out for your contracted hours only. The pay and conditions reflect this.

Really, the people I feel for most with this is those who are struggling financially. I’d love to know what provision is made for people in this position. Nobody has explained that yet.

Yes.

I paid £25 45 years ago for a medical letter.

@FrostedFancy

No it's not what you call profitering from your and anyone's child's well being needs at all,

You are paying for a medical form and your doctors expertise in the process,

I know in lockdowns there was enough 🌈 rainbows symbols about connected to the Nhs,
but L.o.l 😊there isn't a Croc of gold treasure at the end of Nhs rainbow's somewhere waiting to be discovered,

The fact is it's common knowledge that the NHS is showing its age and its allmost on its knees,
desperate for 💉 injections of funding from Gov ect, as its been underfunding for so long.

I think 🤔 paying £40 for this medical form from your doctor's, consirdering the benefit to your daughter's well being in the near future,
Money well spent...

Stop ✋️ the whine fest ...

be grateful we still have NHS here like we do in the UK not like the American health care system...

They most definitely don’t work for free. They work in 10-15 minutes sections and each is measured and billed to the client. Billable hours is how they are rated.

Yes however what I have been saying throughout this thread is not only are you paying the GP for their time, you are also paying for a signed document which has been completed by the GP which holds them legally accountable for the information they have provided.

I also feel for the people struggling financially, myself included but as with all services - you have to pay. You don’t get gas/ electric/ public transport/ mechanics/ plumbers etc for free. So you could ask the same question for every service everywhere that is being provided for a charge.

Free at the point use has to end universally
It already isn't universal. Probably never truly has been and I'm sure never will be in the future as the range and costs of available treatments increase and life expectancy continues to rise.
There are loads of things that aren't covered by the NHS, but people don't realise that until it impacts upon them personally. I'm sure lots of us could start threads about how terrible it is that our/our children's healthcare needs aren't fully met by the NHS. I'd quite like my DS's medically essential dietary needs to be prescribed, even in part, but they're not. From an idealistic point of view it is terrible that there are so many gaps but pragmatically, heathcare is a bottomless pit and there will always be something that can't be funded.* *
**Things could be managed better for sure but moaning about frontline staff rarely if ever changes things. People need to make their views known to their political representatives and vote accordingly. And almost certainly to be willing to pay more tax if they want better services. I'm not holding my breath.

It’s interesting. I am a hospital consultant and have filled endless forms in over my career. They never take five mins. You have to find the patient’s notes and then go through them. Extract the right info. Find the up to date meds. Try and answer weird specific questions based on sparse into. Search all the different hospital letters etc.

But I have never charged. Not sure we even can! I just see it as part of my job to be slotted in somehow amongst my other million tasks. It feels a bit off to charge for this, but it’s also annoying that school needs this extra info.

As I have pointed out in my earlier posts though, hospital consultants usually fill out forms that are specific to their area/ specialty of work, however GPs get all manner of forms thrown at them - multiple times on a daily basis. These forms can be anything ranging from passport forms to filling out a form for a patient to get a discount on their council tax. Then there are the forms that come in from
the benefits agency, solicitors requesting medical reports, the DVLA requesting medical reports, patients bringing in forms for their holiday insurance as they have had to cancel their holiday, patients wanting a reference for immigration purposes hence why GPs are more likely to charge. I imagine you yourself would only need to complete forms for a patient if that form is related to the specific area of work you deal with and I bet you don’t have to complete more than 5 of these forms on a daily basis. Being a hospital consultant is a completely different kettle of fish to being a GP

Hmm.. whilst it's on its knees in terms of being fit for purpose, the model means that GP partners run their own businesses. Lots of practices make a very good profit year end which is distributed to partners on top of their salaries. Don't be fooled to think it runs like secondary care; partnership is profitable and whilst SOME income needs to be reinvested (although rarely audited), much of it can be taken as profits year end. To fund kids private educations, large mortgages and healthy pensions.

OP - YANBU. Forms for holidays, fine, chargeable. But forms for a child with a medical condition to access education, absolutely should be free.

But the form shouldn’t be needed. After 15 days out of education (not necessarily all in one go) the local authority are legally obliged to provide an alternative education. That doesn’t require a GP with minimal knowledge of the situation to fill in a form!