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

Statistically many hundreds of people in your local area will be unwell at any one time. Some will have minor illnesess, others will recently have had injuries, others will have chronic illnesses and others will have acute and serious illnesses. It's a lot of people, unfortunately. It's definitely the case that some people overuse healthcare services, but the actual numbers are relatively small and there is usually a reason for them turning up so often - again, research has shown that if those people are giving the help they need (ending isolation, social support) they stop attending.

The problem is

The pharmacist goes 'sorry no can do'
So you go to the GP and you get a mouthful for not going to the pharmacist, but you get what you actually need.
So you think 'whats the fucking point in going to the pharmacist'.
And you end up feeling like the GP is an uncaring jerk and the pharmacist is a jobsworth and neither care - you should be someone else's 'problem' which damages your trust in both of them.

OR you follow the awareness advice for x health issue, and you are told you are 'anxious' because the health marketing campaign is deliberately designed to make people anxious. But no one takes these charities to task for this scaremongering propaganda that has the effect of GP blocking appointments so people who NEED appointments can't get them. I'm sure that this action probably actually costs more lives than it saves but its hidden because this unintended consequence isn't measured. The health charity is 'doing good' after all. Margaret McCartney raised this issue of 'the worried well' over a decade ago.

OR you get people disengaging from health services completely, because they are sick of being talked to like shite, because they don't navigate the system 'correctly' by twatty uncaring HCP who are unprofessional in their attitude. So they don't seek help early and only engage when a problem has become much more serious (and costly to deal with). Having dealt with an issue with my son recently, what baffled me was the shockingly bad stuff who assumed you knew how the system worked and that you had all the relevant contacts - because they have so many frequent flyers that it doesn't enter their heads that no everyone is a bloody mind reader and is unfamiliar with it.

In every scenario it alienates patient and doctor which is a harm in its own right.

So I really do wish that these HCP would wind their fucking necks in and stop being pricks to their patients as it helps precisely no one.

They should be taking up such issues with NHS managers not patients.

Long may you have such a privileged and blessed life. One day you may discover why people need to see GPs and I hope they are there for you when you do.

I Could not walk. Ie not walk out of my bed , which is why I called an ambulance 😵‍💫

They need to do AI telephone or facetime appts, that would be able to deal with 80% of all enquiries and it would give the doctors more time to concentrate on more important concerns.

And this was in 2003. My bad, I should have just died

How are patients supposed to know what is worthy of an appointment or not? That's what the triage system is for.

Unfortunately it didn't work for my parent who visited the GP 5 times with severe back pain and generally feeling awful. My parent was in their forties. The were told it was a pulled muscle, exhaustion and referred to a physio (wait to see them was months). My parent paid for a private GP appointment and was very shortly afterwards diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. 6 months later they were dead. I shouldn't make myself feel worse by looking at information online but from what my medically untrained brain can work out, if they were referred and diagnosed when they originally saw the GP, I might not have been at their funeral when I was a very young adult.

Would their appointments be put down to time wasting? Because thats what they were told on each of those 5 appointments.

I know my family is not the only ones to have gone through this.

By that logic you could say that, for example, 90% of antenatal appointments are unnecessary because 90% of pregnancies are complication free. The number is made up, I don't know how many pregnancies are really free of complications but it illustrates the point. But nobody sane would suggest we cut antenatal care by 90%.

People need to be able to see a health professional when they are worried. Inevitably, this will lead to some appointments being made unnecessarily but without them lots of true medical issues would be missed.

Also those who do not seek an appointment when they do need one, for various reasons.

Exactly. How many people dismiss symptoms which later turn out to be cancer.

A GP is medically qualified. Exactly the point

Tbh mil is a GP botherer. She found out it would take a few years for a knee replacement and she has very mild arthritis so wanted on the list now. She was told she had uncomplicated gall stones (not causing any issue) and she went back three times saying heavy happy that they wouldn’t take the stones out. Even explaining that it is surgery to remove the gall bladder not a simple case of removing the stones had no effects. She seems to be there at least 3 times a month despite not being unwell. She has high blood pressure and mild arthritis is one knee.

My friend said 80% of his appointments were taken up by 20% of patients and mostly they were time wasters who wanted to complain they had a cold etc.
Ours has a mostly good online system now which probably helps those who are online.

Pharmacy? I went there 3 times and every single time was sent back to GP .

What might be obvious to a GP with years of medical training might be less obvious to the rest of us.

Why would the majority of people sitting in A&E not need to see a doctor? How would they know?

I had to sit for hours with my daughter as we’re worried she had broken her wrist. She hadn’t as it turns out and the only thing she could do was rest it. So obviously we hadn’t needed to have gone as they didn’t do anything for her but if we hadn’t gone how would we have known it wasn’t broken?

Well, I’ll feel secure that I’m not wasting their time because I’m only going when I actually need to.

Unlike the majorly of users. Oh, and the NHS might not be there because of all those time wasters using up resources.

Yes it is and it’s not up to receptionists to decide. All they have to do is triage people correctly. By your response looks like you might be one of those receptionists…🥱🥱🥱

Horrible people get ill too. And if someone drank 20 pints last night and has a sore tummy then cirrhosis is a real possibility.

Absolutely. Receptionists should have more expertise so they can direct appointments to whichever doctor has an interest or specialism in that area.

Having done research with GPs I have some sympathy for this '80% are time-wasters' attitude. Traditionally doctors chose primary care because it was differerent to hospital medicine - it was a slower pace with much more emphasis on relationships and long term health. It was also a great way for a doctor with a bit of business savvy to use their skills to set up a great surgery where they could lead and practice the way they wanted to. Then NHS expectations changed and GP turned into a conveyor belt of 10 minute appointments - patient after patient that you weren't familiar with, constant pressure and paperwork and to top it all off the contract is abysmal so it's not even a good business venture any more. GPs are fucked off and it shows in how they treat patients. It's so unnecessary. If the NHS just stopped squeezing the life out of them they would go back (mostly, barring a few lazy ones) to providing a stellar service.

Ah yes they told me and my nan this last year. You don't need to be here you have heartburn just get some gaviscon. She died the next day of a heart attack.

Whilst I believe their are time wasters the current system does nothing to weed them out at the cost of genuine patients and quite frankly not all gpa can tell the difference themselves.

I agree, loads (LOADS!) of people I know go to the GP on an almost weekly basis for just a chat about something that could very easily be sorted by the pharmacy. I usually go to my pharmacist as a first point of call as they can prescribe antibiotics, and even provide other remedies (creams etc). I find it shocking - to me, the GP and A&E are for more serious things, but I didn't grow up in the UK so the whole healthcare system baffles me as it is!

My doctors introduced a new system where you fill in an online form (if you're able to) and then they usually reply within an hour to tell you what to do next, which has obviously reduced the load as now you can get an appointment within three hours typically.

How do you know what’s a time waster and what’s not until you get there though? I had a potential post op complication and went to the GP. Turned out to be an ear infection. How would I know without going and seeing the GP?

Impossible to say unless medically trained and the reasons for attending known.

Yes, I took DD to the pharmacist for something that the NHS website said should be a pharmacist visit rather than a GP. When I asked to speak to the pharmacist the woman at the counter looked completely confused, and when I spoke to the pharmacist she had an attitude of “why on earth are you asking me about this” and said there was nothing she could do.