to think most GPs just fob you off

[littlestmummystop]

I have my own GP in a big new shiny surgery but never get to see her as she is always booked up and often goes on holiday. So I get a different one every time I go..

I am a pretty healthy person luckily, but really don't feel like I can trust most GP's opinions. They always seem to just go for the easiest diagnosis.

I can see why so many people's cancers etc. are missed by shoddy GPs.

The latest advice is for people to stop bothering GPs with minor ailments, but you have to wait so long for an appointment I can't see why anyone would go unless they have to.
Then when you finally do get there, they are usually so dismissive that only people who complain the loudest will get proper care.
I understand they have a tough job but I can't help but feel most have a sense of superiority and are left not answerable to anyone.

AIBU?

I should also say that I have seen many doctors -GPs, consultants, and also nurses subjected to the most appalling rudeness from patients, and they have all been extremely courteous in return.

I too hate doctor bashing - I could not be more grateful for the health service.

As I said in my post, macdoodle, I had hoped they would make an exception for a young child. I certainly wouldn't walk into a clinic off the street and expect to get seen myself, and I had explained that we were far from home - and, incidentally, any chemist's where I suppose I could have forked out £35 plus for a digital thermometer for a one-off reading.

Perhaps they were astounded, macdoodle, but the receptionist was also very patronising - I think that's the main thing that made me feel affronted rather than just put out by being turned down.

Jareth - I wasn't expecting to see a GP, and as I said the nurse was in the building. And as I said, there were no patients in the waiting room.

and Speedy - (catching up with your posts) It's SHIT when surgeries don't let you book more than 2 days in advance - there are plenty of people with chronic illnesses that need seeing regularly, people who need cholesterol checks, people who have PND and initially need to be seen weekly, people who need to have recurring appts for any number of reasons, and to have the added stress of having to call the GP at 8:31am in the morning doesn't help their situation.

lunch break = house calls (at half hour each), 20 phone calls to return (worried well, results, arrange urgent referrals, ring hospital docs back)at least 5 mins each, sign 100 repeat prescriptions, dictate or type 5 referral letters, check all paperwork into practice upto 50 a day, check results likewise, fill in numerous other bits of paper (blue badge, insurance forms), paperwork for the government targets (never ending), meet with the practice manager to discuss patient complaints, reuphosltering the chairs in the waiting room, new ECG machine funding etc etc etc, maybe a meeting with social services/mental health team about vulnerable child/adult..........its never ending folks, just because the surgery is shut or empty of patients does not mean your GP is playing golf trust me.........

oh sorry speedy I forgot, check temperature of one small child who is well enough to be out with his mum but his mum is really worried and you know Tony Blair says she has the RIGHT to see a GP whenever SHE wants!!

Thsi governement has managed to completely destroy GP and will continue to do so!

Speedy - it doesn't matter if there weren't any patients in the waiting room - the GP's may all have been busy on house calls or telephone appointments, the Nurse may well have not been back yet/been on another call/been with another patient.

Just because the waiting room is empty, doesn't mean the docs and nurses are sitting in their rooms twiddling their thumbs!

Jareth - fair enough wrt people with chronic illnesses, I'm sure this particular surgery would have had systems in place to deal with this, such as specific times of day when they'd handle those patients. In fact, come to think of it I have a feeling the 48 hour rule was specifically for emergency surgery appointments, which works far better than waiting a week or more for an 'emergency'.

Sorry wedlocked my GP is wonderful - and I always get appointments.

Once we my GP could not see me - as she had the day off the stand in offered - and yes when I was heavily pregnant and sick my GP surgery offered to make a home visit, as they were concerned I was too unwell to make the journey in.

My practice is very well run - the reception staff are excellent too.

Jareth - for the third time, the nurse was there! I certainly wouldn't expect a GP to be sent to check a temperature, and nor did the receptionist.

macdoodle - trying to fight your corner here
I'm not a GP but know someone who is and I'm sick of people who think that a GP is someone who sits in their little office, fobbing off people who want AB's for a cold, go home at 5:30pm and get a lunchbreak, earning £90k in the process.

In my experience (please correct me if I'm wrong) but a GP tends to do 10 hour days, no lunchbreak, and the £90K that the media loves to tout about is the money that the practice gets, rather than the GP salary.

GRR at everyone who is blind to this!

oh of course speedy you wounldnt want to actually pay for it, when the GP provides it for free
one exception, 2,3, 4 a 1000, never mind all the work on chronic diseases, travel vaccs, minor surgery etc that the nurses were almost certainly busy doing!

I stand by it, your request was entirely inappropriate! And actually if he had been ill and you were far from home and wanted to be seen by the dr, I would consider that far more appropriate, but wandering in off the street and demanding someone check his temperature for you is gobsmacking to me??

Thank you Jareth yes you are correct!
The numbers touted by the Daily Mail tend to be an average, vastly inflated by some city super docs doing stupid private stuff earning a lot more than your average Joe!

I didn't see the bit about the nurse being there - thing is, your DC was just a bit hot; maybe they didn't see it as something demanding their immediate attention?

After all, you could have just put your hand on his head? Ifyou thought he might have been hot then you could have bought some calpol/neurofen - not like you would have done any harm with analgesics like that..

sorry - this is a topic that really pisses me off - so many people think the NHS is their god given right and don't realise how lucky they are to even HAVE a GP that they can see, often the same day if it's an emergency. This kind of thing just doesn't exist in any other country!

I don't really understand why you think the OP is NHS bashing. She isn't at all - just saying she finds her GP's surgery unsatisfactory for a number of reasons.
I think the NHS is marvellous and I am very grateful for it. I am just rather frustrated that I cannot see a doctor until April 5th (and you don't know what is wrong with me so please don't call me 'Worried well').
Also the government has not destroyed GPs. They have massively increased their salaries for a start.

"Just because the waiting room is empty, doesn't mean the docs and nurses are sitting in their rooms twiddling their thumbs!"

I so agree I remember last year being very surprised that my GP's waiting room always seemed a bit empty or quiet, so guess what - I asked - as it was the absolute height of the swine flu they used double booking of appointments to ensure people were not hanging around in the waiting areas. They are very efficient also.

"wandering in off the street and demanding someone check his temperature" - yep, you've hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what I did. The bit where I said I asked 'apologetically' has clearly passed you by, hasn't it, macdoodle? Using a bit of artistic licence?

Fair enough, I accept that the nurses are busy and have a heavy workload, and that I hadn't thought they'd be bogged down during a lunch break, AND that's most likely why they turned me down. At the same time, as I've already said TWICE, I had hoped that for a young toddler they might have been a bit more compassionate. I've also said (did you miss this bit as well?) that I was more offended by the receptionist's patronising attitude than the fact of being turned down. If I had demanded rudely, as you're wrongly imagining that I did, then it would have been perfectly appropriate to treat me rudely. But I was perfectly polite and apologetic. And definitely not a 'young mum' .

And Jareth - I'm not one of those people who imagines that picture of GPs.

Jareth - I'm pretty sure my DS had other symptoms (ironically I had come from the dentist next door, where I am registered, but they didn't have thermometers so couldn't help) but it was a while ago and I can't recall what else was going on with him. Besides, even after 18 mos of experience as a parent, you're still learning about how to manage their health, aren't you? Particularly as DS is rarely ill, anyway. Oh, and - you're meant to feel their torsos, not their heads .

Speedy - chill.

Why did you go to the docs if your DC just had a temp? was there something else wrong?

wedlocked CRAP
After the initial increase in income with the new GP contract in 2003/4, there has been a freeze on GP pay, with massive increase in staff salaries and inflation, massive increase in paperwork!
My income is now the lowest it has ever been in the 10 years I have been a GP!

When the government has managed to ruin and privatise GP (and have no doubt that is the intention), and GP goes the way of the railways, gas suppliers, GP OOH etc etc, THEN you will indeed have something to complain about!

Don't forget folks, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys, hence the shambles in most of the OOH and the way forward for GP!

Macdoodle you seem to dislike your job and most of your patients and you are obviously paid a pittance. Maybe you should do something else for a living.

my ex was bleeding from his rectum for 2 days and the practice nurse triaged him on the phone and said he would have to wait for 5 days for an appt....i thought rectal bleeding should be seen fairly urgently especially if there were no signs of piles?

If patients would only go if it was necessary,the ones that need the treatment would get in to see the docs rather than being'fobbed off' by triaging. Going to the docs for paracetamol and co-codamol really makes me mad.

I love my job and most of my patients, my pay isnt brilliant, and I could almost certainly retrain and earn more, but I love what I do and am pretty good at it!

It's you moaning winging pathetic Daily Mail reading lot I dont like or have much respect for!

There's about 8 in the practice we are registered at, I prefer to see only 2/3, if I can't get an appointment with one of these and it's not mega urgent I will suffer and wait. I refuse to see the one that said I didn't have my symptoms , because I'd have a lesion on my brain if I did and I wouldn't have that (I actually did), then he said my symptoms were not possible

Jareth - am natural-born health hippy. The very idea of unnecessarily polluting my child's perfectly-formed body with analgesics.... Oh, and I've never used Medised to get him to sleep through the night

macdoodle, aren't you the one that was referring, knowledgeably, to the DM? Hypocrite! You do have an overactive imagination if you think we're all DM readers. I wouldn't know the first thing about what they say about GPs or any other subject, thank you very much