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.

Child is entitled to free education, prescription, medical, dental and optical treatment so this should include all care surrounding that.

I don’t disagree adults should be charged at all but this is for a child.

They don’t charge for referral letters do they? Don’t see how it’s any different really.

But CAHMS is NHS. They are paid for writing the letters / filling the forms just not directly by the patient. GPs aren’t NHS they are private providers paid for certain NHS services. Writing letters and filling out forms for things like this are not an NHS service they are a private one.

I want to know if the OP works for free.

Because she thinks it's disgusting that the GP WON'T work for free. For her. And everyone else who need something similar for a child.

She may wait 2 years for CAMHS

But the GP would probably fill the form out in their NHS paid for time 🤔

They are paid for the referral letters as part of the NHS contract. You’ve accessed a GP for a private service and are now complaining they’ve charged you for it.

@MumblesParty I have no idea what volume of this type of work a GP would typically get in a week but I imagine it's quite a lot?
I think part of the problem is that people only see it from their own perspective - it's something that I don't ask for very often and it's straightforward so it's only a little bit of the GP's time, so why can't they just do me a favour?
But I presume all those little jobs actually mount up to a sizeable chunk of time over a week or a month, and if you do it for free for one patient, where do you stop? Probably if it was actually a 5 min job you got asked to do once in a blue moon you would be willing to do it for nothing but I bet it's not! And you can't do work for free for some and not others - now that would be unfair and unreasonable. It's not the doctor's job to judge who is worthy of a favour is it? Sticking to the contract at least ensures everyone is treated fairly.

They're not entitled to things outside of NHS services, and this isn't included. Direct your ire at those who formulate the GP contacts if you are that upset about it.

Because this is education, not health. You are asking the GP to state that your child needs home education. If you don’t want to pay, just ask for a print out of your child’s medical summary, which will presumably note “anxiety” as a diagnosis. The school can use this to apply for the relevant funding.

Exactly. The GP is apparently being asked to state that for medical reasons OP’s child needs home education. As a GP I know nothing about home education. I didn’t study home education. I studied medicine. I’m not qualified to state whether or not someone would benefit from home education. I can state that someone suffers from anxiety, if I’ve seen them as a patient. But I can’t prescribe what type of education they have.

They can kind of infer it. I have to get one to say I can't drive due to my condition and medication, so they support my application for a bus pass. The condition and meds aren't ones that I'm known to be unable to drive for automatically(I've never felt able to learn, anyway.) It's a bit of a stretch so I'd be reliant on their good will. But some support workers unattached to the GP practice have said I should ask and I am eligible for it.

Also, it could be the OP who's requesting the online learning, the GP just has to write something-or-other about her child's medical condition.

My GP charges £20 to read my son's allergy plan for school. Its already completed and he just has to sign it off, plan has always been the same. I have to get a new one every year and have for 9 years.

My GP has a charge list on reception, its more for things like passport forms and fit to fly letters.

YABU though. If we all had just one form for the GP to complete they would never actually get to see any patients.

It depends when the information is needed though. Some places give deadlines . Also you basically said that you work in CAHMS where there is no charge for completing forms so the op is not being unreasonable. As I have stated above, GP practices are inundated with people wanting all manner of forms completing such as benefits agency forms, DVLa forms, School/ college forms/ disability forms/ criminal injuries compensation forms, solicitors reports, passport forms, holiday insurance cancellation forms. Whereas a CAHMS consultant would only need to complete a form relating to the services that CAHMS provide. Hence why GP’s charge for their time as it is classed as private work, not NHS and they are absolutely inundated on a daily basis with people needing forms completed.

Oh come on. I don’t expect you to work for free, but I think you know that. You do get paid to provide services for the NHS, don’t you? FWIW I agree with you when you speak about the way the NHS and GPs’ working practices have been deliberately degraded. The deterioration in the NHS is atrocious and that’s the fault of the government and those who vote them in.. I wish your working conditions were better. But I’m still surprised you don’t see prescribing treatment for a child’s medical treatment as a core service.

What do you do if a patient can’t afford £40 for a letter to ensure their child’s medical needs are met? Those patients who are earning a lot less than you?

I wasn’t implying anything!! I’m sure some dentists charge too. The dentist I work with and I have been at the same practice for 30 and just wouldn’t charge a patient.
It’s a mixed practice. We do NHS and private. Depends what a patient wants

It’s one thing for GPs to charge for things that are optional/elective - eg a letter needed to carry meds or insulin needles on a holiday flight.Absolutely right that NHS time isn’t used for that and a reasonable charge is levied. This should reflect the actual time and resources needed to complete it though, and not be seen as an opportunity to rinse patients.

Except that as a T1, the letter inevitably has to be changed when they unilaterally decides to change your medication/glucose metre/brand of CGM/brand of insulin pump, and you have to repeatedly pay for letters for the same thing because nobody will just accept a copy of your prescription or a previous letter which should be more than adequate. Yes ultimately the fault is with the people who repeatedly want letters rather than the NHS, but it's kicking people with long term conditions more than those who are on short term meds/short term injured for example where they can see an end to the cost and suck it up just that once. You know that children with T1 get DLA but once you hit adulthood you aren't eligible anymore, because the stresses and challenges of T1 stop when you hit adulthood... It's not a one off £35 or whatever, its that once or twice or more a year, every year to live an average lifestyle.

Of course the solution is to accept more what people say rather than relying on the GP. Don't get me started on activities where they say you need a GP to sign you off as fit to participate. My GP definitely would barely complete a parkrun so how do they know the required fitness and control of your condition required to complete sporting challenges that you have trained and trained for over an extended period of time.

Whatever happened to personal responsibility but also believing people when they say they need/don't need/are/aren't capable of doing something. Race to the bottom of the lowest of the low chancers ruining things for average folk once again by taking the piss.

Sorry that's a bit of a rant but as a T1 it boils my piss that because I have a medical condition I'm not deemed trustworthy to know my own capabilities but the GP who sees me once a year knows all.

Also, it could be the OP who's requesting the online learning, the GP just has to write something-or-other about her child's medical condition.

Exactly, all they have to write is that child seen, reported mental health issues due to health condition and how it affects them at school, awaiting referral made to CAHMs.

2-3 lines written in box on form put in front of them.

Could have been done during an appointment on NHS time but they won’t give me one.

GP's always charge for requested letters AFAIK. I agree. Get annoyed at the school for requesting the letter.

The problem is the school/LA asking for something they don't need to provide the education they are law bound to provide.

^This. The LA has a statutory duty to provide education to those unable to attend school full time. They don’t need a specific form completed for this.

Alongside pursuing section19 provision, you should request an EHCNA if you haven’t already.

You do realise that once the GP writes all this information on the form and that they have signed it then it becomes a legal document that they have put their name to and can be potentially used against them in the future! THAT is what they are signing for and THAT is why they charge you to do so!! It’s not just a few lines it is time consuming to go through your DD’s records and make sure they are giving the most accurate and truthful information they have.

edit: GP practices are also short of appointments as it is without taking one up for the umpteen amount of forms they are asked to sign every day

All the appointments are probably filled with other people who only want a couple of lines signing off🙄

Don't complain when there isn't any appointments to get your form filled, because they're booked up with others wanting theirs filled- And don't get me started on the entitled people who think they should have an appointment for a review of a health condition.

But* *those things have limits, even for children.
I have spent a bloody fortune on optical care for my DS over the years as he has a lot of issues with a complex prescription and the lenses that he really needs are very expensive. The NHS contribution goes nowhere near providing what he really needs and our optician agrees, but she's not going to pay for them herself is she? She does what she's paid for under the NHS and I pay the rest.

How does the GP know how your DD is affected at school better than the school who have presumably seen her at school and are fully aware of her struggles there? If they write down what you tell them to write and sign it it’s really just hearsay isn’t it?

A GP won’t write down what they are told to write down just because a patient says so. They have to write down facts from a patient’s medical records, however most 3rd party services do forward consultations with a patient back to their GP so regardless of who has seen that patient whether it’s a school/ CAHMS/ mental health services, all correspondence from those consultations will usually go back to the GP. The GP would be filling in the form based on what other services have fed back to the GP and is on the patient’s medical records. Anything other than that would be classed as giving false information and could have serious consequences for a GP

It won't take 5 minutes, though, will it. The GP will have to read the form, bring up your child's notes, check that they're the right ones, and read through them, decide how to answer and do so. They may have to consider whether to ask you to bring your child in so that they can give a properly up to date opinion. The form will need to be saved to the practice's own records and sent off to the school using whatever data protection system the surgery and/or the school use, which frankly is usually an awful faff. If the doctor is doing his/her work properly and conscientiously, that is not a 5 minute job.

They will not write what you ask they are legally obliged to write facts. They will need to review the records. The reason this isn’t an appt is because you would just be sitting watching them reading a screen?