GP's please why are you not back to seeing us face to face

[whenwillthemadnessend]

Just that really ?

Please can any GP's explain the reasoning

If dentists physios and accident and emergency doctors can see people why can't GP doctors?

@TinselTinsel

My GP is open to face to face appointments . However my dentist is emergency only, as is my optician.

My dentist is offering a full NHS service, I’ve got a check-up booked for later in April, I know that I will need some follow up treatment too. I’d also received a text recently to remind me to book an appointment with the hygienist. It appears that after reading the various comments on this thread that ‘one size does not fit all’ with regard to GP and/or Dentist F2F consultations. Personally as I have previously written on this thread I’m very happy to have had telephone consultations with my GP over the past few years.🙂

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/former-private-health-firm-chief-23838725 49 GP practices taken over by the UK arm of a US firm. It’d be interesting to know if this has improved things.

GP services were crap long before Brexit. They were crap during Blair's years of trebling spending on the NHS. They were crap before and after Blairs new GP contract which increased GP pay for doing less work.

Let’s not let facts get in the way of opinion. A very proBrexit way of responding. From 2001-2010 the proportion of people in great Britain surveyed reporting satisfaction with the NHS generally increased to a peak of 70%.

That figure was from the 2010 survey, which took place between June and September, after the Coalition government had taken office but related to experiences in 2008/2009 just after labour left office.

By 2017 satisfaction had fallen to 57%.

I'm not sure how Brexit has caused the NHS to deteriorate @LemonRoses. However if being an EU member was so beneficial what a shame we didn't adopt a Continental style health system whilst we were members.

The continental health care isn’t great - my cousins in France complain about a high proportion of their taxes going towards health care and then a cost per GP appointment. Wait times for appointments and referrals are very similar to the U.K..

That isn't our experience of the French system.

However I wonder if LemonRoses recalls the explosion of PFI under Blair, the removal of GP fund holding as it was becoming successful, the implementation of the PCTs to introduce an additional layer of bureaucracy, the introduction of 28 day prescribing and that everyone should wait no longer than 24 hours for an appointment which is the point at which "ring on the day was introduced" when you could ring every day for 10 days and eventually end up asking your DH to take an hour or two off work to do the school runs to allow you to pitch up outside the surgery at 7 45 to be at the front of the queue to get an appointment at, say, 11.30 and have to take a half day holiday to boot.

Yep, GP services were absolutely fabulous NOT by the early noughties. And the service aspect has never recovered.

@Parker231

The continental health care isn’t great - my cousins in France complain about a high proportion of their taxes going towards health care and then a cost per GP appointment. Wait times for appointments and referrals are very similar to the U.K..

This is true. Not whether the French or German system is better but that they spend a larger proportion of their GDP on healthcare. You get what you pay for usually

It rather depends on what you pay.

Let’s not let facts get in the way of opinion

Oh Lemon, coming from the queen of dodgy statistics and surveys that is the funniest thing I've read this week.

@RosesAndHellebores

That isn't our experience of the French system. However I wonder if LemonRoses recalls the explosion of PFI under Blair, the removal of GP fund holding as it was becoming successful, the implementation of the PCTs to introduce an additional layer of bureaucracy, the introduction of 28 day prescribing and that everyone should wait no longer than 24 hours for an appointment which is the point at which "ring on the day was introduced" when you could ring every day for 10 days and eventually end up asking your DH to take an hour or two off work to do the school runs to allow you to pitch up outside the surgery at 7 45 to be at the front of the queue to get an appointment at, say, 11.30 and have to take a half day holiday to boot.

Yep, GP services were absolutely fabulous NOT by the early noughties. And the service aspect has never recovered.

I do but the vast majority- that 70% were very happy with the NHS at the time. PFI was a mistake in the longer term. We do have the improved hospital estates, but it has been at a cost to individual trusts.

The PCTs were much better than GP fundholders in terms of patient outcomes. Far less idiosyncratic decisions. Greater accountability of funds and care outcomes- as public demands for more accountability increased. Smoother pathways for complex care and better use of local resources for greater good of majority.

The PCT were phenomenally expensive and the budget would have been better spent on patient care. My local PCT had a CEO who couldn't read a balance sheet so they paid for her to do an MBA. She was on £55k in 1998ish!

If 70% were happy 30% were not. I wonder what the figure was in 1970 or 1960. The satisfaction levels decline because the NHS is an ill run behemoth stumbling towards an overdue extinction.

The NHS is not stumbling towards extinction or the Tories would have done it by now.

The worrying issue is the Tories privatising the NHS by the back door. A private company isn’t going to want the elderly and those with ongoing conditions such as diabetes on their books.

We have options, if possible we are seen via video, email or phone but we can request a in person appointment too.

Get a call booked for your day off?

Not a lot of use for school workers! Unless part time, they get a day off (other than weekends when I know most of our local GPs don’t work) every six to seven weeks.......

Called GP yesterday, got a call back, had a F2F two hours later.

I would love though if our surgery had an online portal! I get really flustered on the phone, but if I could write everything down and email it in that would really help. Unfortunately the only thing our surgery lets you do online in request a repeat prescription.

Much prefer to see dr on video call or phone for most things

@RosesAndHellebores

If 70% were happy 30% were not. I wonder what the figure was in 1970 or 1960. The satisfaction levels decline because the NHS is an ill run behemoth stumbling towards an overdue extinction.

No that doesn’t mean 30% weren’t happy. About, 15% were neutral or had no view. The first recoding of satisfaction levels was in 1974, but first published in 1978. The highest it has ever been since recording started was during Blair government.

It certainly isn’t stumbling towards extinction except through underfunding and propaganda damaging reputation.

Which other system would you choose? It’s easy for the rich but if you look at Kings Fund data, it is clear far more poor people miss out on healthcare access because they can’t afford to pay for it. The U.K. - despite spending far less on healthcare sees far fewer people excluded because of poverty. I’d think that was a good thing - nobody is equal until we all are, eh?

www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3344&amp&v=XXbF6cUIgfs at 55-59 minutes about the use of AI and machine learning. Is this the future for affordable and accessible healthcare?!

Fine. It's great the poor have fantastic access to health care in the UK. Let them continue to receive it via the NHS and meanwhile provide those of us who would like an optimal and responsive service with some tax relief on insurance premiums.

And it's stumbling towards extinction because far too many who work for it provide sub optimal clinical, care and courtesy standards. I for one am not prepared to stand for it. I witness both sides and know which I prefer.

@RosesAndHellebores

Fine. It's great the poor have fantastic access to health care in the UK. Let them continue to receive it via the NHS and meanwhile provide those of us who would like an optimal and responsive service with some tax relief on insurance premiums.

Pretty unpleasant attitude that would have NB turning in his grave. The idea of the NHS is equal access for all ( more work needed on that, but it’s a recognised principle). You definitely shouldn’t be given a tax break because you can afford more. I’d actually tax higher to Elsa properly funded service.

I’d also charge independent healthcare for their use of NHS resources to increase their profit.

Nothing stopping you taking out insurance privately, as most Europeans do. Good luck getting treatment in an emergency though.

@RosesAndHellebores I’m eyeing a job with private health insurance atm for me & family but I don’t know if that’s any use, in that we’re all healthy and only saw GP for teenage headaches, child tummy pains, DH hand pain etc. I think for bigger things it’d still be a good idea to keep within the NHS. I don’t think AI, apps and private healthcare are going to depose the NHS anytime soon.