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

IMO, GPs would waste less time, if they didn’t keep refusing to do things! DD is pregnant and has hyperemesis. Her OH is a GP. She was admitted to hospital for 4 days, because she was so dehydrated, she couldn’t pass any urine, not to mention weeks without eating. She asked the consultant for the first line anti emetic, which he prescribed.

However, she still had severe nausea and threw up every time, at the smell of food. She asked the maternity unit for the second line anti emetic per the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists guidelines. They told her to get it off her GP. The GP refused. She went back to the maternity unit, who told her to try another GP. They refused.

I told her to write to the consultant and ask him to write to the GP, which he did. The GP then agreed to prescribe the anti emetic.

Why do departments in the NHS spend all their time, trying to pass the buck to someone else and they end up wasting three times as much of their time, than if they had just done it in the first place? It took 2 weeks of this back and forth, while DD was being sick all the time!

Had similar recently elsewhere in the NHS. It's not about GPs. It's about not wishing to take responsibility for patients because they aren't good for the budget.

We complained officially. She should complain.

Our complaint has just been upheld.

Nail on the head. That happens with DH re his bone marrow cancer. Constant ping-pong between haematologist, GP, and other specialists involved such as orthopaedics. He’s constantly told by one or other to contact someone else who of course then says no and he’s ping-ponged back. They’re incapable of communicating between themselves so DH ends up a messenger. Lots of wasted appointment time by specialists and GPs spending more time telling him why they can’t do something instead of spending less time and fewer appointments just doing it!

If her OH is a GP, didn't they have the wherewithall to tell the consultant she wpuld need a letter and this avoid the rigmarole.

He probably did, but she took no notice, as she did with me, when I told her the first time two weeks earlier. He says himself, she takes more notice of me than him!

(The three of us care for her, as she has several health problems. DH and I are semi retired, we care for her Monday - Friday, so he can concentrate on work. He deals with her in the evenings and weekends. The three of us work as a team)

But how are people supposed to know if they need to go to the GP if they don't?

I had to last year take one of my children to the doctors 3 times in a week for each different doctor to confirm my child didn’t have chicken pox and it was a skin infection. She had spots.. that looked nothing like chicken pox, but the school insisted she had a second and third opinion before she was allowed to go back.. all while marking her unauthorised.

what a waste of appointments.

My impression of doctors is that unless it's life threatening, they're not interested anyway. I have a couple of minor health issues, I haven't bothered going to the GP because I don't think they'd care.

This is the problem - day-to-day maladies that are not self-limiting ought to be a GP’s bread and butter. Instead, they grumble about patient complaints being too trivial for them, but simultaneously fail to recognise - often repeatedly - patients presenting with a material risk of more serious disease, blaming “the system” for their failure to refer. (I am thinking specifically of an article in the Torygraph yesterday, describing a 23 year old who endured 13 GP appointments and months of delay to a FIT test before being diagnosed with bowel cancer, and given a permanent stoma. Poor woman was clearly failed terribly in primary care).

plus it's often the GPs themselves insisting on appointments that aren't needed.

I've been on the pill for years - GP insists I have to go and get weighed, blood checked etc by the nurse every year to get it renewed. Why can't I just submit my own weight/blood pressure online?
Had eczema my entire life - if it isn't cured yet I doubt it's ever going to be. Yet I still need an appointment after every x amount of repeat prescriptions for cream to get them renewed again
Same with antihistamines for hayfever.
Had a minor skin tag on my face - willing to pay to have it treated privately but they insisted GP had to check it first.

None of the above were at my instigation, believe me I didn't want to spend an hour on the phone trying to get the appt and then take an hour off work each time.

There’s an element of this I think. It’s like a lot of public services e.g. policing. If investigations warrant treatment, there’s a will they/won’t they act on that? If they do, there’s a long wait and you may/may not get the right treatment plan (comparable to arrest, prosecution and wait for court dates, hope for justice).

You get good and bad in everything - that includes, GPS, nurses, receptionist and people in general - ie patients. There are probably people that go to the doctor for things that they don't need the doctor for, and probably know they don't need the doctor. There will also be others that go thinking they need the doctor, when they don't. In the past I have gone to the GP and left having been told it was a virus and there was nothing I could be given. However, I had been ill for a few days, and felt worse not better. I was hot, shivery and my throat felt as if it was full of glass. I was on max strength strepsils and they wore off way before I could take another. I genuinely believed I had a throat infection. I had never had a throat feel that bad before, and luckily my throat has never felt that bad since. However, as there was nothing the doctor could do - some would say it was a waste of an appointment. There are some receptionists that are too officious and there are others that are good at picking up when an urgent appointment is needed. Doesn't help them to do the job properly if they have people who won't tell them the issue. They know which staff have special interests in certain areas of medicine. They also have instruction on what issues can be dealt with by a nurse/nurse practitioner. Some GPs will be more thorough than others. I can believe that there are some that want patients in and out as soon as possible, without really listening to what the patient is saying, but not all do that. About 15 years ago I had a doctor ask to do a blood test to check my iron levels because I looked pale. I can gone for a totally different reason - yes the results showed i was anaemic, and was on iron for quite a long time afterwards. Could have been much more serious if they hadn't picked up on it. More recently went to the doctor with symptoms that some may have just put down to my age and being perimenopausal. However the doctor didn't dismiss me and did full bloods, which amongst other things showed raised gluten antibodies. Two endoscopies later, I have been diagnosed as celiac. (first was inconclusive so it was monitored). The symptoms I went with were not to do with my stomach, so wasn't something I was expecting back in the blood test results. However, I know that I have been fortunate with the GPs that I have seen. I don't go at the slightest little thing, but when I have gone, I haven't been dismissed, and in some cases, the doctor has picked up issues that I hadn't even booked the appointment for.

As a healthcare professional I think this is a ridiculous stance, people go to the GP when they have symptoms to work out of they need any help with those or if they should be worried. The fact 80% don't need help and self resolved is a good thing, the point of a GP is to have the medical expertise to tell those without medical expertise the best course of action. Telling someone symptoms will resolve is a skill based on their knowledge.

GP is a triage imo all they do is make referrals scribe antibiotics etc- there are many meds they cant even prescribe neither do they do bloodtests etc they rather waste patients time and ask them to come back for an app with s nurse. GPs will be lucky to still have a job as AI rolls out, in some countries GPs are replaced by ai doctor who will scan the photo etc and refer patient to consulabt request blood based on symptoms etc

More AI scans is great news imo, at least you might be able to get an appointment.
One worry though is who owns the AI. I wouldn't be surprised at all is charges for AI was very carefully calculated by tech firms to be only marginally cheaper than a human doctor sucking more money away from ordinary people and into the pockets of Silicon Valley billionaires.