have just been charged £20.50 for a doctors signature!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[changednametoprotecttheinnocen]

I have just asked my gp for a referal for my private insurance and was charged £20.50 for her signature..am I the only one who thinks this is disgusting!!! I thought it would be a good thing not to drain the NHS!!V cross..can you tell????

as in It is always....

MI, are you saying I should have typed out "it is" instead of using a contraction?

it's = it it
its = posessive (though I must admit I'm having trouble with how many "s"s to put in posessive)

Yes, and you'd said 'in it's care'. It should be 'its care'.

I do know about apostrophes.

Ah... "it's care". Shame on me. its care.

Should probably be GPs' time as in GPs plural, general as opposed to one specific GP, too.

(Sorry.)

Goodness. There are so many mistakes in my posts. This could go on all day.

I think I actually intended a singular GP. I do know these rules, but don't always apply them when typing quickly. (or even when typing slowly)

Blu, but suggesting that those who have paid employment can afford to go pay for it themselves is picking off individuals.

sorry, didn't mean to start apostrophe war

I'll just get my coat ...was looking at the wrong post.

Uwila - it's your fault for posting so much

Uwila - but it's still asking them (the NHS) to do something that they are not funded to do. I agree about the assumption - maybe the cost should be paid by the provider of the insurance, sionce it's them that want the confirmation! I bet they DO want something verified, too, i.e no known expensive illnesses, etc, as part of this sign9ingg process.

Blu, I actually think this is an interesting point:the scope of an NHS GP. Now, what is that? General medical needs of your patients? Unless you are so pompous as to go and buy yourself private insurance?

And where is the period at the end of your sentance, Iota?

we have full stops here uwila

I'm pretty sure the signature is just to keep patients from seeing specialists frivilously - it makes it more of a hassle for the patient, essentially.

fuul stop? jeez, I can't even type

Agree with Bndle et al. GPs (and teachers) are overwhelmed with bureacracy. Their waiting rooms are packed full of people who are not sick expecting them to do favours for nothing. They charge people as a disincentive to make them go elsewhere to get their forms signed so that people who are ill can see them more quickly.

Yes, it's tough having to fork out £20 for asignature when there is no alternative but perhaps sitting in that same surgery is someone who needs an osteopath as much as you who doesn't have private insrance and perhaps your £20 may help a tiny bit to make that surgery a more pleasant place to wait.

changedname...
you have two arguments here which realy should not be linked.

1. that you should not have been charged, or should have been charged less.
2. people who iyo are time wasters should be charged or penilised.

These are very seperate issues and should remain seperate.

As for you first ponit, I think it has been more than outlined why the payment was nessesary. You feel that you are taking a strain off the NHS, this is true in some respects but not from an admin POV, this payment will go to compensate that.

As for the second point, I do belive that we are a teminally unhealthy nation, however it is wrong to sit on a pedistool an openly call everyone hypochodriacs or antibiotic hunters. You enter very dangerous teritory saying that time wasters should be penalised.

I work in a and e and sometimes wonder if people who phone ambulances unnessesarily should be penalised, like the people who stub there toe and call 999(it does happen)

HOWEVER. with reflection, on this and the GP service I belive that on the whole their time is very rarely wasted. After all who is the call handler to decide wether you are genuinly scared for your life when you make a call, or if you are genuinely worried about your health when you make a gp appt. Yes the nature of the problem may be trivial however the anxiouty you are feeling is very real.

I feel very strongly that this applies to a great nubmber of the people you are referring to. People should not feel like they are wasting a the time of a GP by wondering if they will be charged. Equally it is a huge part of the GP's job to encourage a healthy lifestyle within that 10 minute appt.

And to the old lady who doesnt really need an appt but has just been feeling very anxious recently, cant put her finger on it but needs a bit of human contact...would you charge her? Or the mum desperately worried about her fist time time baby who really just has the snuffles...would you charge her?

It is a dangerous business and not a decision that I would like to be forced to make! The very

I've solved the entire dilemma by being a career pleb who will never have private health insurance.

So I'm going to take £20.50 and use it on poor lifestyle choices. There are some very nice bottles of champers to be had for under that price, with a fiver to spare for chocolates that will make me obese. :o.

i love it when a thread topic gets lost in apostrophe discussion

Blimey - since when did a referral for specialist treatment required for a patient's health equate to "admin"? I went to the GP for a referral to a neurosurgeon recently under my partner's work health insurance policy. Long-standing serious back problem. Had my partner not had the health insurance the referral would still have had to be made. A few years ago I had to be referred for a laparoscopy following detection of a endemetrioma. This was again made under private health insurance. My GP did not charge on either occasion and I would have been annoyed if she had. I think to make a charge for this is not acceptable. There are only certain things a GP should charge for. Passports are a different matter - they are not relevant to the treatment of illness. I'm sure the BMA has guidelines on the sort of thing that GPs can charge for.

I've also never read the Daily Mail - except when found it on the tube for light entertainment.

i got charged £66 for my gps signature for my childminding health clearence!!
i expected to pay but not this much

I agree nellie ..this was the point I was trying to make.I saw her last year for a referal for a gynacologist .She wrote a letter for this referal but didn't charge so whats the difference.It is a valid medical poroblem that I cannot solve without her referal so why the charge,and why so much?

Um, I don't think most doctors recognise osteopathy as a valid medical fix for things. Physio is part of traditional medicine, osteopathy isn't.

That may be the difference?

I think my GPs surgery charges for referral letters in general, though. As others have said, if you're queue jumping by going private, you should pay for the extra hassle to your GPs office.

many do, nqc, and I know one GP who practises manipulations in his own surgery