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

Doctors definitely forget that general public don't necessarily know about health care.

My MIL was once being tested.for hepatitis due to some medication she was on.and she got mixed up and was terrified she had hiv.

Ive got a long list of thing - hair loss, irregular periods, something in my foot which i suspect is tendonitis but might be a stress fracture? And a lump (cyst) in my back. Each on their own doesn't feel enough to book an appointment for and I suspect the doctors would tell me they can't do anything anyway - but just the knowledge/reassurance from a professional would still be nice? Like for them to say - yes its definitely tendonitis- do xyz to help. We have so much information online these days but its often contradictory and sometimes it'd just be nice to actually speak to a professional.

I haven’t read all the comments because I can’t bear to.
I left GP because it’s become such a horrible job and I was becoming unwell.
I can completely understand why as a patient it feels like GPs are lazy and uncaring but for the vast majority that’s not at all true and many GPs are on their knees.

I’m fairly sure this figure is plucked from the air and just someone frustrated.

but…

There’s data that shows that around 20% of appt are being used by people who have been referred already for the problem but are waiting to be seen. This definitely reflects my experience and it’s also really demoralising as you’ve already tried everything you can hence referring so you can’t help these people.This also puts a lot of pressure on appointments. Not blaming secondary care for this, the whole system is crumbling.

People seem to have a lot more health anxiety since Covid - I think it’s made people much more aware of their health. As much as people hate econsult it also opens up people’s access who wouldn’t have contacted before, especially now it can’t be turned off in core hours. We get people who have had a painful throat for just a couple of hours, quite often. By the time you call they say it’s better or, worse, that it’s better but they want to be seen anyway ‘in case there’s something else going on’. In litigious society we often feel we can’t push back with these requests.

People seem have lost tolerance for minor illness and won’t wait to see if it passes - I suspect that reflects busier lifestyles and also economic pressure.

I think we’ve lost a lot of ‘village’ and lots of people are isolated; they don’t have trusted friends or relatives they can bounce ideas or worries off first. See also services like health visitors and school nurses that have been chronically underfunded and now barely function as services.

All of which is just a few reasons it does feel like many people come to GP who don’t need to. But it’s not the fault of those people. I don’t think many deliberately misuse the service.

if anyone feels the need to reply to this please be kind! I found leaving GP very traumatic and I miss it a lot but found the job completely unsustainable and the GP-bashing online very upsetting.

You could try garlic infused in olive oil for the ear.

This is contra NHS advice, but it worked, instantly and permanently for someone I know, after years of recurrent ear infections.

Garlic cloves in oil, put in sunlight for a few days to infuse. A few drops in the ear.

They do eye tests which include suggestions to go to your GP if certain things are flagged.

I worked at a GP as a practice nurse. We ran nurse led clinics for GP appointments which were over seen by a GP (think 6 nurses to 1 GP). We had a shortage of GPs, deprived area. GP would come in to see patient if nurse deemed it necessary. All patients were triaged before on the day appointments were given. I would probably say that 75% of patients I saw didn’t need to be seen by the GP meaning they had very routine, easy to examine and treat by the nurse. The other 25% needing examination, more complex or serious presentations. It made me realise how out of date the whole system is and how patients often visit unnecessarily or are wrongly of the impression they NEED to see GP. They often got more empathy/care/time from the nurse than the GP would have given them.

One of our GP’s was seen sat in his car with his head in his hands last week. And is now off sick under after Xmas at least. Not his first episode this year.
Practice nurse (out next year and counting the weeks).

Except for any controlled drugs, our prescriptions are requested and dispensed every 2 months. Controlled meds still need to be 28 days.

I'm quite sure the current structures and practises are damaging and awful for practise staff and doctors, too.

Or live in Scotland 😉 We don't pay for eye tests.

There’s a GP in my family. He says people have lost the ability to self monitor minor illnesses

Hmm. Why would that happen?

How would it be improved?

Yip this. I was having issues with my eyes. I rang GP, was told to go to the Optician. I did and the optician after carefully examining my eyes referred me straight to the hospital. They know more about eyes than GPs. Similarly if you have an issue in your mouth, 1st stop should be the dentists who knows far more about oral health than the GP and is likely to refer you straight to hospital if that's needed. A friend had cancer in her mouth. It was the dentist who picked it up.

Oh yes. Have a read of the UK doctors’ sub Reddit. It brings it home how we are held in contempt. Years ago I was ignored until I was nearly dead and ended up with sepsis, weighing five stone. I was continually dismissed by every doctor I saw as being a teenager who was probably anorexic or on drugs. Both of which are best treated with contempt and dismissal apparently. Luckily, my mum found a private specialist who got me into intensive care just in time to save my life.

Well said!!! 🏆

I think GPs are an incredibly outdated system. Someone upthread mentioned a clinic that had more specialists for certain things. Seems to me we'd be better off with ENT and skin specialists for instance, like opticians and dentists.

I like the idea of a large clinic in town that had these services. When you read the GPs blurb on my surgery's website, some of them have specialisms in aspects they have a particular interest in, whether it's dermatology, digestive function, or whatever. I'm sure everyone would be happier seeing a doctor/nurse combo who had more detailed knowledge of their presenting issue.

This is exactly it.

I have a set of things I suspect are one thing, but have potential to be much worse.
I've tried with some of them to get a GP appointment and the best I've had is a text, assuming it's the mild side suggestion something like using otc painkillers.

I could have heart problems, tia, a blood clot in my leg and a few other things on that level. The symptoms are there which could point to those -I know enough to know these would be reasonable conclusions from the symptoms I supplied to the GP.
In not one of those cases has the GP even bothered to phone me. Now as I said I know enough to suspect these aren't those, but the GP doesn't know that.
If I'm in that situation, then I'm sure there are others in that situation too. And for some of those it will be the more serious illnesses.

Our surgery triage almost everyone by phone before they provide a face to face appointment. You submit an e-consult, they phone you and then decide if they actually need to see you.

You can still see them on the day if this urgent but then you have to do the ridiculous 8am calling thing.

Problem is people don’t realise this is actually a good system to make sure people are using the GP’s time effectively and everyone just complains they can’t get an appointment when they phone up at 8am for something that isn’t urgent (like a menopause assesment or the symptom they have had for 3 weeks and suddenly decide it needs looking at within 24 hours even though they have managed perfectly well for the last 3 weeks).

When I was at university I had a skin issue that just wouldn't go and I spoke to several GPs. I was then told they had a skin specialist within the surgery who could see me

That is literally the job of an e-consult. They are read by an experienced nurse and directed accordingly.

The receptionist isn’t intended to make medical decisions. They are there to book things - like urgent appointments. The only questions they are ask are to determine idle the appointment is actually urgent.

Idk, but when we were children, our parents grew up before antibiotics and the NHS. Their parents had to pay for doctors and knew to try first home remedies like honey and lemon for sore throats, colds, etc or a warm flannel for a stye. Our parents only took us to the doctors, if after all that, they were still worried or knew it was something serious. They’d seen scarlet fever, polio, etc in people they knew; or people die from blood poisoning from a scratch in the garden, etc before antibiotics.

My children have never seen measles, scarlet fever, etc.

We grew up with that knowledge of home remedies, and the understanding for instance, that colds make you feel ill, but you get better in a few days. Somehow some of that knowledge has been lost in younger generations; and as the NHS is free at the point of care, why not get a GP to check it out?

Also, from what I hear, people come here from other countries and expect the same health system here as they had at home - like they can go in a shop to buy antibiotics for a cold; or people go straight to hospital clinics, because they aren’t used to a GP system?

IMO, care for minor illnesses, including in children under five should be taught in schools in PHSE.

The UK has a population of 70 million. If each of them had a 6 monthly checkup that 140 million extra appointments each year. Even if we make a very conservative estimate that a GP appt costs £20, that's £2.8 billion so you can have your check-up. Who is paying for that?!

I think the point about opticians is a pedantic one about the ones doing the actual tests and prescribing and referring to GPs are the optometrists, not the opticians. But everyone says I'm going to the opticians, and the shop signs usually say opticians. You're probably only going to talk about optometrists if you're getting into a detailed discussion about what you did there and problems it showed.

My opticians is part of PEARS - GPs refer you there for eye checks, because the optometrists there have some kit (and presumably related skills) that other opticians in town don't have. If it's something serious, you then get a hospital referral. Not sure about PEARS, but usually highstreet opticians and audiologists can only write to your GP to ask them to refer you, which seems an unnecessary step.

I went to have my ears microsuctioned at Specsavers, during which we all had a good look at my ear canal on the screen, although I couldn't tell you much about what was going on. They said (and it was they, as they asked for the duty senior audiologist to come and look too, a trained audilogist,) that looks like infection, you need a referral to ENT. GP ignored the letter until I was there for something else a few months later, and asked what's happening. GP agreed it was impacting my hearing - but they only had a handheld otoscope to look, not the choice of kit at Specsavers. Still i got a referral to ENT, which came round quite quickly, and it was ultimately sorted with topical antibiotic drops. But it was an unnecessarily long path to get there, which for me was mildly inconvenient- couldn't hear as well, but for others could have more serious consequences.

If trained optometrists and audiologists could refer directly, it would make more sense, but at the very least, if either the audiologist o'r my GP had said, your GP will also need to see the ear before forwarding on the referral, that would have also helped. I mean, they send me enough messages about flu jab and upcoming appointments, so why not a message to say, we got a letter, please make an appointment.

I did have a health check when I was 40, but nothing at 50 which I think is odd. I don’t think I’ve seen a GP for 10 years at least now

You're entitled to one every three years I think? Not that they'd encourage that, or advertise it.

Dentists and opticians manage it, one six monthly, the other annually or bi-annually.