My GP has told me that 80% of their appointments don't need a GP appointment.

[Hiptothisjive]

So I get that there are always people that need reassurance but this number shocked me. Basically a lot of people are visiting their GP for reasons they don't need to and taking up a lot of GP time.

It's great some of the prescriptions that can be given via a pharmacy now, but surely there needs to be a re-addressing of when to visit a doctor?

YABU - to expect people to know better than go to their GP when they don't need to
YANBU - people should go to the doctor whenever they want to no matter what the issue

Triage at A&E have also told me the same thing

I do think it needs rethinking about when we go to the doctors. I’m probably at the other end where I wait ages to get better then drag myself along. Most bugs you do get better from in all fairness but I suspect I wait too long which has required an expensive hospital admission.

I was told I was "anxious" and there was nothing wrong with me on no fewer than 12 occasions. I have no doubt they gossiped about me wasting their time, my notes are a disgraceful series of dismissive platitudes. Then finally to 'prove it' after I wrote a letter of complaint they did an MRI and other tests and now I am diagnosed with MS. GPs would do best to carefully address their patient and not dismiss them as time wasters. When I was diagnosed with a life limiting illness I got no apology and now any problems, including cancer is "because you have MS". Skin changes due to possible cancer are nothing like MS legions and luckily I was able to self refer to the hospital where it was removed within 6 weeks. Mine is not an isolated or even a rare story.

My GPs essentially triages you when you phone for an appointment and can advise whether or not you need to actually see the GP or whether it could be a phone call appointment, see the nurse or a HCA (Health Care Assistant?) or even just go to the pharmacy.
I personally find it good system but going by many threads on Mumsnet people don't like talking to the receptionist ("just someone who answers the phone....I'm not discussing my issue with them" 🙄
That's their job. They are trained to do that.

I often see my GP purely to be referred to a consultant. Its entirely a waste of an appointment for them.

I feel that the initial conversations had with GP receptionist could result in fewer appointments if handled by nurses or a new job role that enabled further questions and more time allotted to patients calling in. They could be redirected to the more appropriate service but patients often feel very rushed and cut off. Time invested in the call handling end could save time for the GP perhaps.

Yeah GPs do manage to convey to the majority of people that they shouldn't really be there and are wasting everyone's time ... despite all the publicity that tells you you absolutely must see your GP for this reason or the other, when you actually try to they generally don't seem to think you should have bothered.

It doesn't surprise me a bit that a GP sees the job this way. Maybe they would be better in another profession, though.

I wonder how much is spotted by chance during FTF appointments - unrelated to what the appt was for in the first place. GPs are surely first and foremost keen observers of the whole, integrated clinical appearance of a patient.

Also I suspect people go when they are struggling mentally and need someone to take an interest in them? Or when they are lonely and need connection and are at the stage of seeking this from institutions. Not all of these people may seem lonely - they may even come across as belligerent, hypochondriac or self-absorbed etc, but deep down need that minimum social contact.

Not to say that people don't need to take responsibility for themselves, but GPs, teachers, police and others in public service roles do so much beyond their official remit which is valuable and would leave a gaping hole if not done.

Yes they are the "middle man" sometimes.
It would be good if you can bypass that.

Maybe there is a case for surgery receptionists who take the appointment calls to be nurses so the are able triage and people will be more willing to talk to them?

But how many of those 80% are people who could/should reasonably have known they didn’t need to see a GP?
How many are people where the GP, with all their knowledge, has been able to say “this isn’t a problem”/“this will resolve on its own”/“some OTC medication will help this”, but actually the person wasn’t unreasonable to not have known that themselves. Are we counting that as someone who didn’t need the GP?

Part of the difficulty is identifying which are the 20% who should be there, without having an appointment. There are also people who appreciate the support of an appointment- especially vulnerable or older people- due to anxiety about treatment, difficulty understanding advice etc etc. Those probably count as “not needing” the appointment strictly speaking but it’s a question of what level of care we want to be available, as a society.

It’s not just time wasters and idiots.

We have this. For some things I don't need to speak to a GP. I just need advice

We fill in a form online

I am surprised this is news as in i think we could have worked this out for years and as mentioned a&e

a very similar story. My doctor would say my appts weren’t needed, as I was being anxious, I had a whole host of issues that weren’t anxiety, nor was my cancer anxiety, I didn’t have anxiety just a terrible dr and once you have those notes it’s even harder to be taken seriously
i was lucky enough due to a wirk scheme yo be able to go private

In the past year for either myself or my dc, I've tried my local pharmacy for the following:
Sinusitis x 2
Chest infection tion
Impetigo
The pharmacist couldn't help on any occasion because the prescribing "rules" are so strict.
Example:
Yes - your child has impetigo and I agree with you i am also concerned regarding it going into their ear canal, however you'll have to go the drs for the antibiotics as I can only prescribe of there are more than 3 active areas of infection (there were 2..)
Utterly pointless

I haven’t voted as they seem quite polarised. Some sense needs to be applied when going to the doctor and appointments aren’t easy to get. I may be wrong, but when I hear comments like that, I wonder if it’s a GP who just dismisses health issues (there are excellent, good, medium and thoroughly shit ability in every profession). It’s the same when I hear a GP on tv saying everything is anxiety or whatever - I just think is it or are they putting everything down to that? There are so many threads on people being fobbed off, or refused help when diagnosed.

That's people turning up.

Gp they can triage before attending

This is why I love my GPs E-Consult system. You give a detailed description of your issues, can attach pictures/videos, ask for a specific Dr to look at it.

The GPs have time set aside to triage them, and decide if you need a F2F, phone, nurse or whatever appointment. I've never waited more than 24 hours for a response and with some urgent issues I've been in front of a GP in hours.

This 100%

I’m really torn on this one and honestly don’t know how to vote. GPs can absolutely fob people off and miss serious stuff I ve seen it happen more than once. But at the same time, loads of minor things just need a prescription that a GP has to sign because the meds aren’t available over the counter.
Pharmacists taking some of that workload is, imo, a good thing.
I’m not saying I’ve got the magic fix for the whole GP system, but maybe, just maybe, some sort of properly trained AI triage tool could help.
I’ll be honest, for the last few health worries in our family, I used bloody ChatGPT. And it was right every single time. We can usually get GP appointments in 1–2 weeks via the online system, and while waiting, I just typed the symptoms in. It gave the correct diagnosis and even suggested which tests to ask for.
When we finally saw the GP, I asked for those exact tests (for my DC and for myself). They were done, and the diagnosis was confirmed.
So maybe an AI system that suggests likely tests or possible causes based on symptoms could take a bit of pressure off GPs.
But it should always come with an option to override if someone’s anxious or doesn’t trust the AI, they should still be able to insist on seeing a real GP first

I’ve had the same with pharmacists. The last 3 times I went to them was for an ear infection, a child with conjunctivitis, and then period delay pills. They had the treatment there and knew what was needed, but needed a doctor to prescribe all 3.

In addition, the NHS Protocol for prescriptions to be given 28 days at a time must be using GP time unnecessarily. I'm now on blood pressure meds for life; at 67, I may well live another 20 years or more. Making me and all other like me request a prescription every 28 days ties up a GP more often than is necessary.

I fail to see why this is the "protocol".

I've tried pharmacists for my children and they always tell me to go to GP ,because they don't like treating children ( for skin condition)

Really? 80%? That sounds more like a frustrated GP having a bit of a rant on a bad day than a reliable assessment of how many people who attend GP appointments need them, to be honest.