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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think this is a rather strange and stupid rule for a doctors practise to have?

120 replies

BigBadMousey · 31/07/2008 09:29

DD1 4.3 been up all night very ill with suspected tonsilitis. Been sick several times and had a high temp.

I asked the docs for a home visit (she gets car sick as it is and is feeling dizzy plus she would be incredibly upset if she was sick in public) and they said 'no, we have a policy whereby we don't do home visits for children'.

wtf?

I don't get it - seems ridiculous to me but AIBU?

OP posts:
Mamazon · 31/07/2008 12:47

Im with PPH im afraid.

Gp's are desperatly under resourced and they simply dont have enough hours in teh day to give each patient teh 1:1 care they think they should recieve.

your daughter may be upset that she is ill in public but for some that isn't an option.

bundle · 31/07/2008 12:51

completely diff if someone posted:

GP doesn't do home visits, am knackered with 2 sick kids, gimme some sympathy as I've got to bust at gut to get there

zazen · 31/07/2008 12:52

I had a home visit once Dh was away with work, and I paid privately 45 quid for a doctor to come - I was having a kidney stone and couldn't function at all, just had to have a shot of pethadine - had my DD with me at home, and in the end, had to put her to bed and wait for my mum to come and babysit before I could get to AnE, 6, yes 6 agonising hours later.

No GPs do home visits anymore where we live - there is a special emergency home call service that covers the city I live in but you have to have your money ready.
For a bit of car sickness - why don't you give her sea sickness tablets and let your DD have her head out the window - with a scarf on for her throat.

I don't think the GP is being unreasonable, tonsillitis isn't a deadly disease and isn't acute - like appendix, stroke, cardiac arrest or kidney stones are.
Hope she and you are feeling better soon

Janos · 31/07/2008 12:52

I guess a few people have just reacted to the original post and have not read that the OP actually took her daughter to the surgery, then came back and agreed that she was BU about it!

Ekka · 31/07/2008 12:54

ReallyTired - even for a homebirth, we had to take dd to the surgery when she was 5 days old for her checks, no GP came anywhere near us during or after the birth.... I wasn't too amused at the time as our car was out of action and the surgery is a 20 min walk at the best of times! Funnily enough though, it never occured to me to order a taxi . Will make a note of that for this time round!!!

zazen · 31/07/2008 12:56

Guilty as charged Janos. I skimmed through the posts!!
Glad the Op is on their way to a speedy recovery - but isn't it interesting how bad the health service has become? And how little we expect of it now?

bundle · 31/07/2008 12:57

I don't think it's become bad at all zazen. I think it's a good thing that many people are taking more responsibility for their own health too.

igivein · 31/07/2008 13:43

My c-section scar got infected and came open. Rang the Dr for home visit (couldn't drive due to section, no bus service where I live etc)got short shrift from the receptionist who said they didn't do home visits and I'd have to find someone to bring me in. Half an hour later there was a knock at the door, it was the GP who was really apologetic, said the receptionist was a bit of a dragon and they treat each case on its merits. Impressive I thought.

smallwhitecat · 31/07/2008 13:51

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

roisin · 31/07/2008 14:24

We did once have a GP visit, even though we didn't request one!
Dh and I both had an absolutely hideous gastric bug: I've never been so ill, ever. We couldn't keep anything down and were absolutely wiped out.

ds1 was about 3 months old at the time, and I phoned the surgery to ask whether I should consider bf or not. The receptionist put me through to the GP, and she said she wanted to pop out to see us and check all OK, which she did.

macdoodle · 31/07/2008 16:39

smallwhitecat - your mum was of the generation when they had the time and luxury of doing 10 home visits a day to trivial complaints/minor illnesses - afraid nowadays we just do NOT have the time - thanks to the government imposed beurocracy/paperwork/targets/hoops etc etc etc etc etc etc.....
It has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with financial gain - there is no money in either doing visits or not...it is all do to do with time management and rationing the time we have to those most in need - the terminally ill, the genuinely housebound or disabled etc ...it is funny how many people cannot get to the GP surgery but have no problme getting to the hairdresser, dentist, shops etc...and those most in need who abuse the service the least (no offence to OP who has taken the criticism in good grace).....
It would be a very rare thing for me to agree to do a house visit on a child, though am always happy to discuss with parent and triage appropriately, and more than happy to squeeze said child in before surgery so they don't have to wait , it is just not time effective to visit (though most of us are not heartless and I would probbaly go see a child with say a mum who has just had a baby or some such)....

smallwhitecat · 31/07/2008 16:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

MsHighwater · 31/07/2008 23:37

It is not reasonable for a GP surgery to have a blanket rule that they will not do home visits for children (if this is, in fact, what they said).

That would mean that they would not even consider the possibility that a child would genuinely be too unwell to be moved, with no regard to the practicalities of moving them.

I'm not saying that it was unreasonable for the OP to have to take her DD to the surgery but it is definitely unreasonable for a surgery to exclude the possibility without making some kind of assessment of the situation.

In the OP's shoes, if I wastotally confident that that is actually what they said, I'd be tempted to make a complaint to the Health Authority.

macdoodle · 01/08/2008 07:04

It is unlikely that it was a blanket rule IMO just usual practice I would guess...
IMO it is exactly those "children that are too ill to be moved" whatever that means - that need to be moved - if a child is that seriously ill IME (which is pretty long)....then they need 999 pronto kids deteriorate quickly and if they are that very ill then if they can't be moved how on earth will they get to hospital ...or would you like the GP to bring a full rescusitation kit with them ??
And this stupid knee jerk reaction of complaining to the health authority is just daft - to what end exactly - to punsih the GP for not jumping to you command grrrrr....why not have a reasonable talk to the practice manager expressing what you believe was said and seeing how it can be remedied...a formal complaint bypassing the practice is in almost all cases a punitive excessive reaction !!

misdee · 01/08/2008 08:11

sometimes the no home visit thing annoys me but i try and stay calm.

i have taken all three of mine to out of hours surgery with severe vomiting, felt awful doing it, but no doc could come out at the tim, and i needed them to be seen partically dd1 who has other health issues.

but i love our current GP who always made home visits to see peter before his transplant. he used to comer out at least once a week to see him as he couldnt get down to the surgery (less than 5min walk away) and i couldnt drive, yet he wasnt that ill to warrent being in hospital. though he did arrange some transfers to harefield when the fluid in his legs, chest and stomache needed draining. we knew he needed to go in when you could press his stomache and leave finger tip dents in the skin for 5mins afterwards

Bounder · 01/08/2008 14:06

Agree with macdoodle, GPs working day is very different from those in your mothers heyday smallwhitecat. After long surgeries (four hours of ten minute apointments not unusual ie 24 patients in succession all needing individual attention and lots of paperwork/targets stuff which has to be fitted in), then phone calls and presciption signing, they then start on home visits. True, these are fewer in the past but are almost all to extremely elderly housebound patients with multiple illness and medication, most of whom would, in the old days, have either been in long term geriatric wards (closed down on the 1090s) or not alive at all! (increased life expectancy). Its all about optimum use of time, and nothing to do with profit.

Bounder · 01/08/2008 14:07

I meant 1980s obviously

Onestonetogo · 01/08/2008 14:11

Message withdrawn

MsHighwater · 01/08/2008 20:51

Oi, macdoodle, who are you calling stupid?

"unlikely that it was a blanket rule IMO just usual practice" - If the OP was actually told "we have a policy whereby we don't do home visits for children" then it was a blanket policy and not just practice (not that the distinction would matter much if it meant that they would never even consider visiting a child at home).

And I do think that there is some room between a child being ill enough that it is not a good idea to take them to the surgery and being so ill that they need an ambulance.

As for not complaining to the Health Authority, well fair point - one should certainly take a complaint to the practice first but, if that doesn't work, a complaint to the Health Authority is entirely reasonable, imo.

macdoodle · 01/08/2008 21:28

And what would you consider a satisfactory outcome - perhaps you would like to tar and feather the dreadful naughty GP (who maybe was to busy looking after patients like poor misdee DH) who refused to jump to your command - because of course thats what Tony Blair said that GP's must obey every whim of the great British public be it a reasonable one or not !

fledtoscotland · 01/08/2008 21:46

I do think you are being a little bit unreasonable. surely a good old fashioned carrier bag would suffice for your DD to be sick in.

re the other posts saying that housecalls are not necessary: i had to fight with my GP's receptionists to get a housecall after i had been discharged from hospital after major surgery (i couldnt drive and DH was working 45miles away). I live in scotland and my family live 500miles away and our only family is our 10mnth old boy so i literally have no-one to drive me to an appointment. GP was lovely when she came out but the receptionists could have passed for rotweilers!

hester · 01/08/2008 21:56

This thread is very strange - why are some people getting so heated given that everybody basically agrees?

pointydog · 01/08/2008 22:01

Doesn't seem that big a deal to take your child in.

MsHighwater · 01/08/2008 22:03

Wind your neck in, macdoodle. You sound a bit touchy. Has this touched a nerve with you?

Not interested in tarring and feathering - dropping the policy and accepting the need to consider each request for a home visit on its merits would be quite sufficient, if it were me (which it is not).

I don't think the OP came across as expecting anyone to "jump to [her] command", either. Her initial reaction was that taking her child to the surgery would make her worse so she asked for a home visit. Now, it might have been entirely reasonable for the surgery to refuse to visit in this instance but the OP reckons she was told that they do not visit children as a matter of policy. I think that is unreasonable because it does not allow for the possibility of it ever being reasonable for a sick child to be visited at home. Some other posters have come up with some perfectly sensible scenarios where a home visit was the appropriate response.

Original poster
BigBadMousey · 02/08/2008 10:09

I suppose I had better quickly jump back in here...

Yes, exactly as Mshighwater said, my AIBU was really more to do with the fact that they said they have a policy whereby they do not do home visits for children at all - not the fact they wouldn't visit mine. That seemed rather strange to me but as someone very thoughtfully pointed out - children have carers who can find some way to get them to the doctors whereas the elderly often do not have that luxury. Around here they do have a service to get the elderly to the doctors by volunteer drivers, but since I have no need for that service I don't know how good it is.

Although I suspected DD has tonsilitis (becasue I had it too) I was concerned that she might have something more contagious and that by being sick in the docs she might spread it to others. I didn't put that in my quick first post though.

In short, I have no complaints at all. And either way, I would have had to have taken her out with me to pick up her prescription.

OP posts: