OP, yes give the letter to the receptionist with a sticky on it to say for Dr to read before the appointment, without your mum's consent if you were to speak to the Dr, they can listen to what you are telling them but can't necessarily tell you anything about your mum without her consent. Also depends on how the appointment goes you may need to prompt her as well so that she doesnt know the GP has the bigger picture and so you have to help ease it out of her and fill in the gaps.
Whoops just seen appointment was this morning, hope it was as well as possible
@1moreglassplease Hope that works for you. The older generation tends to put a lot of weight on what the Dr has told them and don't question it, (i do know that's a generalisation so forgive me)
GPs are well used to this sort of thing and will approach it discretely. So don't be surprised if you get told about it by your parents as "doctors orders"
In hindsight I wish I had insisted on attending GP appointments with my mum, she would only go every 3 months as that was the length of her scripts.
For 3 years before she died, she had a pain in her side, after her death I found out via her medical records as needed other specific questions answered, and sat with her GP as he went thru the case with mehe explained her symptoms as what sounded to all and all recorded as being bowel related, she had a colonscopy in April that year, it was clear but they planned to repeat in 6 months as she was still in pain.
Turns out it wasnt her bowel, it wasnt until she ended up in my local hospital rather than going via her GP who still had all the signs and complaints about it being her bowel. Her kidneys had failed and one was at bursting point due to pressure and her heart and lungs were under fairly high pressure and drowning. She died 6 weeks affter I got her into my local, she wasnt well enough for them to work out fully what all was happening, we found out the 4 causes with a post mortem. Her bowel was fine.
I found this out when she was in hospital. She was having intermittent breathlessness, chest pains,
She had a TIA years before which she lost her balance completely, she drove herself to the drs, she didnt tell me she had made an appointment and I went off to work while she rested, we didnt know she had a TIA. The dr said to her make sure you have someone to drive you, yes Smurfy apparently drove her except I didnt, I was furious when she told me quite proud of herself but had to go to hospital for an MRi where she was admitted for 3 weeks. I took her car keys and hid them. I kept them hidden for almost 6 months.
After she died I had tons of questions due to a comment someone made at her wake and found out the real reason why there is a big age gap between me and my sibling and other family health history came to light which we had always been told something very different about and potentially caused a problem at that time (as siblings we got testing done) to see where we stood, thankfully both of us clear but we didnt know for quite a while.
Looking back now I regret that I wasnt more proactive with her and opening communication between her and the GP (the same one she went to for 25 years and who saw me as a child) and myself.