GP sending people to A and E as no appointments

[JoeyRamoney]

In the last few weeks, our GP surgery has been responding to online consults saying “we consider your problem as urgent and we do not have any urgent appointments. Please go to A and E.”

The reason we wanted to see the GP?

DD has a persistent stye and DH has what we think is an ear infection. We have been to the pharmacy for both as a first point of call.

why are they redirecting people to A and E?!

what a dumpster fire the NHS has become. The GP services are so clearly under resourced that it’s now pushing people to other overstretched areas of the NHS.

It becomes urgent because you cannot get an appointment with GP, but surely not everyone needs to go to A&E for those conditions. I would phone 111 and maybe they can find an GP appointment near you. At our Practice, it’s virtually empty, only nurses there in the morning, if you can get someone to see you, it’s not them, they direct us to our Community Hospital to see someone, which I believe is cheaper.

Of course there are no appointments.

There are some big developments where I live, thousands of new people, no new surgeries.

So maybe the councils should have thought about it before green lighting the developments?

Yep!
Our GP seems to finally have things undercontrol after years of mismanagement precovid.
I have been able to get same day telephone appointments twice this month. And then in one case seen in the surgery after the call determined I needed to be.

But the NHS has been decimated.
We have also called ambulances twice since Xmas and both times wait was over 4hrs.....for things that really couldn't wait 4hrs....so we drove which was fine. I am happy to drive but if you're on your own with a seriously ill patient it's really difficult.
And they say you don't get seen any quicker by ambulance....but you don't have to stand in the queue to answer pointless questions from a receptionist and wait to be triaged either.

Untreated ear and eye infections can turn very nasty. We have an out of hours service here whereby you get an appt with a GP anywhere in the borough the same day if your own GP is full.

Do you have walk in centre?

Mine has a scarcity of appointments yet there are signs up saying they are accepting new patients with a QR code to register.

My borough is rolling that out. How do you find it?

@ForestFawn it is very good and never had a problem with it. Always get an appointment the same day if you need one. May have to travel and the appts can be late but it has always worked for us. You can book smear tests etc too if you are working and you need an evening appt with a nurse for your smear.

We are lucky enough to have a walking urgent care centre locally and one next to the big A&E, see if there is one nearby.

The NHS is overstretched everywhere. DH is a GP and one of the things he finds most miserable at the moment is people coming back months after he’s referred them to secondary services because they still haven’t been seen, but there’s nothing he can do for them.