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 are not filling the need of their patients. This leads to pressure on other services and delayed diagnoses

it won’t make any difference. It is like phoning in to a national radio competition trying to get an appointment at the best of times and I’ve not managed to win the prize of a GP appointment despite calling literally hundreds of times the last two weeks to just repeatedly hear the engaged tone. I went down in person to be told that I had to phone. So I stood there and phoned and surprise surprise it was engaged ( call handlers not the reception staff. Receptionist shrugged when I told her . Went to see pharmacist and she said you need to see your GP 🤦‍♀️. I was in so much pain I ended up paying for an online GP appointment. So I think we can cope without a few days more of the same non service we have come to expect. From now on I won’t call my GP but I’ll just wait till out of hours as at least I can stand a fighting chance of seeing a GP if it’s something concerning that’s needs attention.

Honestly I don’t think they should close at all, apart from Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. Especially over Christmas and New Year as there are so many winter illnesses. Recently our out of hours service at a local hospital closed its doors completely as it was overrun with patients sent there by 111. People get sick on bank holidays and if I can go to the zoo on a bank holiday I should be able to go to my GP.

They should be open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, 365 days a year, using all those spare or underworked doctors they have. Idiots.

As they used to be

Our surgery sent a text out the other day that all routine appointments are now 6 to 8 weeks as they are so short staffed. Emergencies are seen same day if possible but by a nurse practitioner. They have been trying to recruit for months now (rural practice) with no takers, and there were so many complaints about locums that they try not to use them as much. So if they were open over the Easter weekend, it would be the existing staff who are already pushed to the limits. I'd rather they had a rest like most other people, tbh. And let's face it, few of those who demand appointments would genuinely need them.

In my area we call NHS 24 and are given an ‘out of hours’ appointment the same as we’d do if we were very ill over a weekend.

@HummingbirdChandelier Ah yes, when we had the doctors available and there was no health crisis or staff shortages. Think a bit.

@Thementalloadisreal how much would you have to be paid to work all those days? Would you work 7 days a week? Including all but 2 of the annual bank holidays?

Same here but ours rarely seems to have a GP working anyway- 1.5 days a week between 2 GPs. It’s not surprising people just head for A&E.

YANBU and I'm shocked others think you are.

We aren't Jesus and can't rise from the dead ourselves, we are just as likely to get ill on Easter Monday as any other Monday.

I think surgeries should open weekends too.

And before anyone queries where the doctors would come from, it's the same GPs working for the OOH as it is at your surgery... just usually with a 3rd party creaming a profit off it for running the service....

GP’s are as entitled as anyone else to work part time.

Those few people who think surgeries should open 24 hours, have a think about how this would be funded. There isn’t enough money to employ enough GPs/nurses/ANPs with the current opening hours, so if you spread the remaining clinicians even thinner, GPs will continue to leave and no one will train to become a GP. Then who will supervise all those not doctors as well as deal with any of the complexity/follow up that patients want with their own GP? You will be left with a service staffed by individuals who can deal with the simple stuff but none of the complexity.

It greatly saddens me that primary care is in such a state, but to be honest, I’m not surprised because the government want it to fail so that the population will accept some form of a privatised service. Of course the politicians are probably all accessing private care themselves , they don’t care about the rest of us.

I’ve been a GP for over 20 years, and probably have another 20 years to work. I loved my work when I started, and still love looking after my patients. The job has become more and more unmanageable. 10 minutes isn’t enough for anything other than a simple sniffle (which are seen by the ANPs in 15mins). We have been absorbing work from the rest of the underfunded services, being asked to do more and more with less and less. We are incredibly resilient, but are human at the end of the day. We have clearly reached a tipping point because no matter how hard we work, and how many additional hours we log in or stay behind at work, it isn’t enough for the population demand.

My colleagues and I already routinely work 12-13 hour days, also often logging in at weekends and evenings on top to do additional admin. That’s why very few can now manage 5 days a week.

But force me and my colleagues to work 24/7 365 days per year and I know most of us will break and leave for other countries where they still value their doctors or will change profession entirely and use my skills elsewhere.

i promise you, no one wants you to work 24/7 365 days a year!

in an ideal world, there would be enough trained staff (because it’s not just GPs, it’s nurses and admin staff) so everyone gets a balanced working week on a fair salary and that a fuller service can be offered. 35 years ago I recall GPs doing evening visits when we were poorly children. That is unheard of now.

My surgery is, remarkabley, open. I had an appointment on good friday and my son has one on monday. I think my surgery has the last remaining doctors in the uk working for it.

I think the ideal is we have enough GPs to offer a 7 day a week service. This obviously doesnt mean people work 7 days a week. And there should be extra pay for working anti social hours.

The reality is we dont have enough GPs to provide that. So we cant have it.

The normal out of hours service here, is a walk in centre in a different town where a nurse can prescribe anti biotics or send you to A&E. (She can probably do more than that)

@Albertslittletie i remember those days too in the 80s. But if you spend some time what happened around those times it might give you some idea as to why we had to move away from that model.

With the old gp contract the practices covered their own out of hours. As patients realised it was the same one or two GPs they’d be calling out, they initially tried not to call them, as the same doctors were then also working the next day.

as demand grew, this became completely unworkable, GP no longer became an attractive option to junior doctors looking to specialise, so again the number of GPs fell and the doctors remaining were becoming ill and not well enough paid for the work they did. The government saw the problems and introduced the new GP contract around 2004, taking the responsibility for out of hours care onto themselves (developed to PCTs at the time). Suddenly, there was 24 hour cover provided by external provider who employed their own GPs and some GPs may have chosen to pick up extra sessions as suited them. What the government didn’t appreciate was the amount of unpaid work the GPs had been doing, and suddenly had to foot the actual cost of providing this service.

With the 24 hour Amazon culture that has impregnated the current population I don’t think there is anyway we can go back to the old model of providing ooh care by the same doctors that provide in hours care. It may surprise some to learn that we are actually human, with our own families and commitments outside our jobs.

Because GPs are only under the umbrella of the NHS. They are small businesses in their own right.

I bet you don’t find it so bad that the staff at them don’t get all the bonuses and pay rises that the NHS staff get if they work in hospitals.

You just see it all as the NHS, it’s not funding wise. The budget given to GP surgeries has not really risen in real terms for years.

You see in the news the percentage of pay increases the “NHS” staff are demanding, but in GP land we are lucky if we get 1%.

Maybe you should try working in your local GP surgery, you will understand the cr@p that it dealt with as “emergencies”. Believe me you would be shocked.

We get few genuine emergencies, we get lots of whinging and moaning and GP bashing by people who could legitimately treat themselves at home, but prefer to take appointments from those who actually need to be seen.

Like I said, come and work in a surgery, you will understand why they need the break.

Do your team regularly cry at their desk because of the way they have been spoken to? Ours do, most Reception team members last about a year, two max because of the abuse from the public.

No. I wouldn’t know that. Why would I know that?

again, this isn’t about removing much needed break and holiday from staff!

I spent 25 years working as a gp and hating bank holidays due to the utter carnage before and after, not to mention being so stressed and unwell from my work that I was completely unable to enjoy any time off anyway. I am so 'greedy' for my pay as a lazy GP sitting on my arse drinking tea... that I left and now work in an unrelated field for just over minimum wage... I could walk into a job in any practice in a 10 mile radius tomorrow, as they all have vacancies.. and earn much much more than I do.. but I wouldn't do it if for ANY money... I am now really enjoying my bank holiday weekend for the first time ever !

The practice nurse does the spirometry and probably a lot more of the above.

These threads make me despair.

Post after post saying “GPs should provide a 24-7 service, 365 days of the year”
People pointing out that there aren’t enough GPs to provide even a fraction of that service.
Then more posts saying GPs should provide a 24-7 service, 365 days of the year.

What do people not understand? Please can someone explain.

There is a massive recruitment and retention crisis in primary care. GPs are leaving the country, retiring or changing professions faster than we can recruit, with a constantly increasing unmanageable demand/workload, aging demographic and tremendous complexity with less and less being provided by secondary care, the job is unbelievably stressful and physically exhausting. Mental ill health and burn out rates in GPs are extremely high.
Most GPs get paid to work 8 hrs per day and work 12-15 hrs daily (and don’t get paid for that overtime). Many end up catching up on work and admin late into the evening, or during their leave, and at the expense of their own lives and families.
It’s a very tough, gruelling job.
Honestly, if you want anything left of primary care in this country, I would give them a break.

I mean primary care in general. Yes those jobs are shared between the GP and the practice nurse, but they are all overseen by doctors. And most nurses don’t prescribe or review results.
Anyway, what is your point? Please tell me you’re not saying GPs are doing nothing.

Nah, YABU.

They need and want a break like anyone else.

I had friends whose parents were gp's - they lived in the same property as the practice and never saw dad (most gp's were men). Kids sent off to boarding school (eg rishi sunak) The phone could ring or the doorbell all hours of the day or night weekends bank holidays and dad gp would go off on the short journey to see the patient who was well known and often nothing could be done- holidays could only be had if another gp would come and stay in house
Fast forward some of DC's friends are gp's - she would be working part time as in need of childcare, having to commute long distances as either do not want to live near the surgery or cant afford to, expected to actually cure patients or recognise serious disease. Doctors want a life like the rest of us.