To think GP surgeries shouldn’t be closed over Easter weekend? [Title edited by MNHQ]

[Albertslittletie]

AIBU unreasonable to think there’s no reason for Gp surgeries to be closed for four days over Easter weekend? They aren’t even closed for this long over Christmas.
Why does this happen? I don’t work in the NHS but I don’t understand why most other services seem to run apart from a GP surgery, doesn’t this just force people towards A and E?

GPs should def be funded to work on bank holidays and provide half day/reduced service on Saturdays to keep on top on the backlog.
Our GP closes for half a day on a Wednesday every 4 weeks for staff training. Can anyone shed any light on what they actually do? Surely staff training needs and should happen, but does it need to be this frequent? How many patients could they have seen in this
time?!
We are an ageing population that is generally more sick than precovid times. The amount of kids that have been off school at anyone time this term in particular at my children’s school is between 10-15% , never mind staff absence. There’s been all sorts of nasty bugs that’s they end up passing it on to their parents and their grandparents who end being ill for days/weeks.
This is not good for economy.

Have you checked that they are actually closed? I am working on reception on Easter Monday for our GP out of hours service. Just me and one GP for pre booked appointments. We are in a circuit of four GP practices in our area - each one is open one day over the bank holiday and patients from all 4 surgeries can be prebooked into an appointment at any practice.

We aren't open as a usual day - the partners cant afford to pay the staff.

You have to remember - GP surgeries are an business - they get a certain amount of money from the NHS but they still have to pay their staff out of that money. Our surgery most definitely couldn't afford to pay every GP, nurse and admin staff double time to work a bank holiday. The admin staff are already on minimum wage with no sign of an increase due to the cuts being made to the funding received.

If GP’s were funded to work over the Bank Holiday, they would takes days off in the week in lieu or would you want them to work a 7 day week? There aren’t enough GP’s to open any more hours. DH was a GP for 25 years but had enough and handed back his contract. No one took the practice on so thousands of patients then had to find another practice but with no additional GP’s to cover the increased number of patients.

The closing on every fourth Wednesday is a compulsory thing set by nhs England/CQC. Believe me - most staff see it as a complete waste of time!

Its compulsory stuff like governance training, diversity, etc.

I have far too much work to do to have to down tools and attend training once every four weeks. Particularly when it is held on a Wednesday, which is not my normal working day but I still have to go in for the compulsory training!

Oh - and we are funded to work weekends. In our PCN there are four surgeries - we all open late and early one day a week, we take it in turns to open on a Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday and bank holiday. Admittedly for pre booked patients but then again, the GP practice is not an emergency service.

We have to provide a service even on Xmas Day - rather surprisingly we have very few patients wanting to book an appointment on Xmas Day!

I’m not sure if you are in the UK but it’s a religious holiday. It’s normal. People get paid extra to work on bank holidays. If I was a GO I’d think I’d be looking forward to 4 days off.
There are still 24/7 services.

It’s a mess. I have literally given up on my gp. If you can get past the receptionist (who literally should be in charge of border control - if she was at the helm, our borders would be hermetically sealed) you cannot get an appointment. I found a lump, queued for 45 minutes on the phone ( you arent allowed to go in person) to be told I couldn’t have an appointment for 4 weeks. I was freaking out and 4 weeks was just way too long. I’m incredibly fortunate that I could pay to see a private gp the following day, and it’s sorted now. But, I’m a net contributor and I would really bloody like to see people who cannot afford to go outside the NHS get treated in a reasonable timeframe.

But what work?

If I phone the gp surgery, it's for routine stuff, vaccinations, repeat prescription for hrt, all bits that can wait 4 days or more.
If I have a heart attack, I'll go to A&E and pray it's not being clog up by those who can't use the services correctly.

Actually youre wrong. My friend is having her cataracts done today on the NHS. My sister is working - shes an OT in the community

We train enough doctors in this country but the problem is that we can’t retain them because of obvious issues. Couple of Specialised doc I know of have left the country to work in countries that pay more. And why not?!
Doc need to be paid properly to keep them in their jobs, same for teachers. Teacher haemorrhage is another one.
We can’t have a healthy functioning nation economically with current physically unhealthy and and uneducated generation(s).

😆 you are kidding right-slating someone for not living near a hospital-how crass can you get!

We moved to Canada - better quality of life and doctors are respected although Canada also has some problems with so many people wanting appointments. The other GP’s in DH’s practice have also left the UK.

I would not describe GPs as underfunded and under resourced at all.

I think they should be open today and should up their game all round

YABU, out of hours GP services are available. We called at 9am for kid with raging ear infection. Triaged by 111, triaged by nurse, saw GP at 3.00

Fantastic service.

There are more patients wanting appointments than there are available. They are underresourced. Why shouldn’t GP’s have the Bank Holidays off work - they are contracted to work them.

You do realise that there is a terrible shortage of GPs. If they worked weekends then they would have to take a day off in the week to compensate as most people don’t want to work 6 days a week. You would not clear a backlog.

Because GP surgeries are not an emergency service. They are for routine things. If it genuinely cannot wait contact out of hours.

They need to recover from the daily abuse they get.

People will miss them when they eventually go private.

People can moan all they like about GPs not being open enough, and being paid too much etc, but the fact is, there aren’t enough GPs to offer more appointments. So clearly the pay and conditions aren’t THAT good. Because if being a GP was such an easy job, doctors would be queuing up to do it. It’s the same as teaching. People say teachers have it easy. Well why aren’t there loads of people wanting to become teachers? Do the maths!

GPs are allowed (in their contract) to close over Easter, so why wouldn’t they?

Agree with the first part.

disagree with the second as a crucial service to society.

but that’s the issue isn’t it?

I'm not in the UK but GP's surgeries are not open on holidays here either. Why should they be, they are as entitled to a break as anyone else, and they definitely need one. As a pp said, they are not an emergency service.

I'm a palliative patient. A district nurse came to see me today to get bloods, and the hospice I'm under called to check I was ok and remind me they are there all weekend.

I'm fortunate to live in a county with an extremely good well - funded hospice. It should be like this everywhere.

I work as a Community Nurse in a specialist team and have been on duty today. The problem is this - person needs help and they cannot get a GP appointment so they call 111 who usually direct an ambulance or refer it to the GP OOH service. The ambulance service cannot cope and a lot of the time they are the most appropriate service anyway so they refer it to us in the community. We have so many visits that we cannot cope either (District Nurse team cancelled 50 scheduled appointments today alone due to capacity issues) the OOH GP service also do not have enough appointments so they refer to us too. It is a complete bottle neck of patients leading to a very very stressful day at work for me, poor patients are missed and left unseen. I then have a manager on the phone who wants to know why i have not got capacity.....26 years I have Nursed and I can honestly say I have had a guts full of the pressure. I absolutely think GP surgeries should be open all year round.

That'll be a waiting list initiative, done at vast cost compared to what it usually costs the NHS.....

But this contract doesn't pay them to open on bank holidays. That funding was taken away and given to the out of hours service to provide a service They are self employed but the NHS tells us when to open and close and what services we have to provide. We are not that free to do what we want

In 2020 we were paid extra to open at Easter and may bank holiday. It was very quiet but the hospitals still got their bank holidays.

Where would we find sufficient GP’s to run a 365 day service.? GP’s are leaving in large numbers and not enough doctors are wanting to train as GP’s.

We keep being told this is a "Christian country" - at least whin it suits various bigots to say it is. Easter is the most important festival in that religion's calender (much more important than Christmas). Makes sense it should be observed fully.