Let down by GP practice

[Spieingingwhatsits]

For context, my DH died very suddenly 12 weeks ago. I’m exhausted, I have physical aches and pains and I’m not sleeping.

i called at 8.05 for a GP appointment. I was number 30 in the call queue. When I finally got through to someone all the appointments had gone.

They were worse than useless when my DH died, so my sympathies. Physical effects, along with brain fog are quite common. My hair fell out, and I lost 4 stone in as many months. 😒

No advice, but condolences on your loss. 🌺

The practices where you can only make same day appointments are utterly ridiculous, you definitely need and deserve better.

As a short term thing do you have a pharmacist nearby that you could talk to about an over the counter product that could help you at least manage the discomfort and get a bit more sleep?

Thank you. I’m so sorry to hear about your loss. 💐

You are right about same day appointments being rubbish. You can’t even book routine appointments at my practice, so everyone is ringing at 8am whether it’s urgent or routine. Being thirtieth in the call queue is soul destroying.

The GP system needs scrapping. It's not been fit for purpose for about 20-30 years. It's just a historical wreck of the past from a time when GPs did everything, i.e. births, attended accidents & emergencies, did operations, etc. In the modern World of healthcare it has no place and that's what it's failed.

My OH has cancer and even he can't get any help or appointments from the GP whenever he has problems not directly related to his cancer/chemotherapy. The condition and treatment causes lots of other issues, but the oncology nurses and consultant won't deal with anything not directly related, so just keep fobbing him off back to the GP where it's impossible to get an appointment due to the 8am stupidity and then if he gets through that, he has to go through triage who usually just refer him back to oncology the moment they see the "cancer" flag on their system. On the very rare occasions he's managed to speak to a GP, it's the same, they're not interested and just refer him back to his oncologist as they glibly say it's cancer/chemo related.

That was after they dismissed his symptoms for 2/3 years before finally taking him seriously and giving him a blood test which showed the cancer!

A different GP practice effectively killed MIL at New Year because they wouldn't deem an 85 year old woman with pneumonia deserving of an appointment and when an appointment was finally made (after 4 weeks!) the GP wouldn't prescribe antibiotics and just sent her on her way with a recommendation to buy some cough medicine and cough sweets (didn't even examine her!). The day after she was blue lighted to A&E and 2 days later died!

We need to scrap the system and bring in the "street corner" clinics often seen in other countries which are effectively one stop shops with nurses that can do minor treatments (wound bandaging etc), blood tests, minor x-rays, etc., and a doctor in the background that the nurse can refer the patient to if a prescription or further examination/referral is needed.

I have T2 diabetes, and couldn't even see a diabetic nurse for 3 years and couldn't even get the usually diabetic blood tests for 2 years because the GP surgery had no diabetic trained staff and wouldn't do the blood tests because they had no one to review the results and give advice etc so they said it was pointless to do the blood tests! Apparently their GPs weren't "trained" to deal with diabetes!

It's all an absolute fiasco.

Sorry for your loss but this isn’t an emergency. Didn’t they offer you an appointment for another day?

Are you able to submit an online form for an appointment? If it’s mental health and you need help now then phone 111.

Some practices will just tell you to call back again in the morning, it’s terrible. There should be exceptions like in OP’s case.

OP is there any out of hours docs or medical centres near you? You might find it easier to get an appointment there.

My GP surgery only provides appointments to those who win the daily race at 8.30am. I have tried yo schedule non-urgent appointments in advance but told to phone on the day. It’s useless.

OP, I am very sorry for your loss.

My GP surgery don't have any advance GP appointments ever for anything. The only GP appointments they have are from the 8am scramble. If it's an "emergency", i.e. urgent, they tell you to phone 111 or go to A&E as the default response. If it's something routine (like discussing a blood test result or a chronic condition review), you phone at 8am, maybe (if you're lucky) get put on the list for triage, and then someone will call back telling you whether you're getting a phone call appointment or not that day - if it's not urgent they'll say you're on the list for a GP to phone you, but it could be today, tomorrow, later this week, next week, etc - basically whenever a GP has a spare slot, they look on the list of non urgent call backs and when you get to the top of the list, you get a call. Completely useless for people who can't randomly take phone calls, i.e. those who have to work etc where mobiles aren't allowed or if you're in a meeting or another medical appointment, etc.

My gp practice had 170 no shows for appointments in February. This a large village practice on the outskirts of a medium size town.
They allow you to book in advance online or by telephone and also have on the day appointments.
They are considering scrapping advance appointments because of all the no shows.
When you have an appointment, you get a text message to confirm then another message the day before to remind you

Do the numbers. 170 for 20 working days is only 8.5 missed appointments per working day, or 4.25 per half day session. Assuming they had two consulting rooms in use (probably more, but let's say just one doctor and one nurse), that's only 2 per half day session per clinician. I'd say that is pretty good and I'd be surprised if you could get that figure any lower at all when presumably in a normal half day session, the clinician may on average see 16 patients.

Also, how many of those would be completely unavoidable with any system, i.e. elderly/confused/disabled patients who can't remember or can't manage appointments, or unwell patients incapable of attending due to their condition or being admitted to hospital, etc.

I'd venture to guess that very few of those 4 per morning/afternoon just couldn't be bothered because they decided to do something else instead.

As I said, everyone rings at 8am, urgent or routine. They don’t make appointments for another day.

I find it's less busy on Tuesday to Thursdays. I've had to ring 111 to get antibiotics as I couldn't get an appointment last week. But if it's not something like that you can't. Sorry for your loss.

I’ve got to wait until Monday now, before I try again. I just feel so low and unsupported.

It's awful and you should be able to get GP support. My practice is the same, absolutely no way to book appointments in advance and I've never been lower than 24th in the queue when calling at 8am on the dot.

I know it's not the same but we're here if you just want to talk / vent / tell us about your time with your husband.

That’s really kind of you, thanks. I feel so alone, there’s no one to give me a hug. My adult kids are great but they have their own grief and families. I do try and put on a brave face with them, as I don’t want them to worry about me.

I am very sorry for your loss. What help were you trying to get from the GP? Most support can be a self referral, I.e. talking therapies, support lines like cruse bereavement etc and depending on the type of death other alternatives. Most are reluctant to issue sleeping tablets as a first line treatment, it might be best to speak to a pharmacy and also try some alternative therapies such as meditation, light exercise for example.

That's understandable but don't feel you have to hide it all. Sharing grief will be comforting for them too ❤