Refused appt to diagnose rash (might be chickenpox) is this right?

[springintheair]

I tried to make an appt for dd1 today but the practice manager said as her spots could potentially be chickenpox she couldn't come in. I was offered a health visitor appt instead (bizarrely the contagion thing didn't apply in this case because dd1 could be isolated apparently). When I said I was entitled to see a GP I was told I wasn't allowed to and this was nationaly policy. Is this right? Has anyone else been refused an appointment. Even when I said that I wasn't in a position to diagnose which is why I wanted to see a doctor and the spots could be anything including meningitis I was still refused. Told health visitors experienced and able to diagnose but I want to see a doctor about this and other things (dd2 has excema and 4 or 5 weird skin tags).

This is not the 1st time I've had probs with this practice. I have tried to make doctor appts several times before and been given a time to come down only to find this wasn't a doctor appt at all instead I had to wait in a queue to see a health visitor. The health visitor is nice and I'm sure highly competent and trained but as a health visitor not a doctor. Aren't I entitled to see a doctor if that's what I ask for? When I asked the health visitor to be referred to an alergy clinic for dd2 she said she would find out if this was possible, try to refer me to a dietiician and phone in a week to tell me about these things and check if hydrocortisione cream was working for dd2's excema. She never called back. Again is this just one of those things or should I be angry?

Advice please.

Would have to ask dh about his surgery, I know they have a minor "ailment"/injury clinic run by a nurse, but not sure how patients are allocated to it.

I avoid the GP surgery whenever possible b/c of git receptionists. There's only one GP in there worth a damn, anyhow, and the friggin' receptionists don't want to put anyone with her.

When I phoned to cancel an appointment for DD2's jabs, b/c we're delaying them till she is 6 months, the receptionist launched into a diatribe about how children should be vaccinated. I told her if I wanted a lecture I'd go to a vicar and now I'm persona non grata there. Oh, well.

Phone NHS Direct and get an after hours appointment.

'Is it an emergency?'

I'd go to A&E if it were an emergency, you dozy bint!

FFS!

and btw, how the hell is a lay person w/no medical training supposed to be able to tell the difference between a chicken pox rash and suspected meningitis?

They could ask 'do you need to see a doctor urgently?'. Rather than stick their noses in your private business. Seriously, it is unethical for receptionists to demand details of your medical needs in this way.

'They could ask 'do you need to see a doctor urgently?'. Rather than stick their noses in your private business. Seriously, it is unethical for receptionists to demand details of your medical needs in this way. '

I agree.

now Expat it is really not like you to sit on the fence when GPs are involved, say what you really think!

To clarify, I don't know whether dd has chickenpox. All I do know as I told sugery is she has spots which could mean cp but could also mean measles or meningitis as I pointed out to the surgery. Admittedly these conditions are unlikely but just imagine if it turned out to be one of these and I was refused an appt! As time goes on it looks increasingly unlike cp. I've shown the spots to others who also can't agree one way or another. Without a diagnosis how do I know whether to send dd to nursery next week and since she has been to nursery before we noticed spots what does the nursery tell the many parents (some of whom may be pregnant) of young children and babies who may or may not have got what she has got? That they may have been exposed to what may or may not be chickenpox but could also be 1000 other things but since the surgery refused to even look at dd we really don't know? Strikes me that a GP has a responsibility to the whole community. Also, as pointed out by others on this thread CP while generally a routine childhood illness can have very serious consequences. Some countries routinely offer vaccinations to those children who still haven't had CP by puberty because of risks to developing fetuses. So what do I tell dd about whether she has had cp when she starts contemplating pregnancy? Again, 'Oh well, you might have had it when you were 3 but I have no idea since I'm not a doctor and the doctor wouldn't see you'.

Bagel if you really think that you shouldn't go to a doctor's surgery with a potentially contagious disease then that rules out measles, mumps, rubella, flu, conjunctivitis etc etc. Doctors surgeries are full of infectious illnesses because thats what they're for! If my surgery has a procedure for children with potentially infectious diseases to see a HV then I don't see why this same procedure shouldn't be applied to seeing the GP. If it doesn't have a procedure then it bloody well should.

If I had faith in the HV then I might be willing to see her instead of GP but as pointed out earlier she has offered me bad or no advice on several previous occasions and since my dd's condition is not obviously cp I'm not willing to risk her judgement. I also want to see GP for other reasons as outlined below.

I feel my blood pressure going up again so better not respond to this anymore,

I thought DD had CP twice before, both times we were able to see a doctor who couldn't say for sure if it was CP or not. I just assume that my children haven't had CP as it has not been diagnosed. Also if they had it so mildly that hardly anyone noticed, chances are, they would catch it again anyway.

I personally would keep your DD off nursery until either more spots appear or until the ones she have go down. Even if its not measles or CP, she probably still has some sort of viral infection so could be feeling a bit down.

In answer to what you tell her in the future, I would say she hasn't had CP. She could always have a bloodtest to confirm her immunity.

At my gp's, you only have to tell the receptionist that you want an emergency appointment and they give you one. They do not ask why...the decision of whether you need one is left up to you, the patient. In fact, if you try to tell them what's wrong with you, they just say that they are not medically trained and that you have to see a doctor about it. They are also really good about using their brains and asking the practice manager or doctor if there is a question about something. The surgery is a bigish very busy london surgery and works very smoothly.

Of course, if you leave the choice of whether it's an emergency up to the patient, there is always going to be some percentage of patients who are either irresponsible or hypochodriacs. But you would get that anyway, because people like that will exagerate their symptoms anyway to get into the doctor.

I had both my children vaccinated for cp as it's mandatory in california for school attendance.

That sounds a dream, Sofia! Wish we were so lucky.

They're honestly a waste of time and when I tried another they were an even bigger waste of time.

It was the 5th surgery i was registered at in 3 years. The first 4 were total crap. I don't know if it's relevant, but it is an all female surgery (all the gp's and all the staff are female!).

I must be very lucky with my surgery. They only has 6 pre-bookable spaces in any given day, so it is a case of if you want an appt, you call up on the day. If you call in the morning, you almost always get an morning appt, or offered an appt in their lunch or late afternoon clinic. This works brilliantly for us, as I almost always call for one of the children. I hated having to "predict" when I was going to be ill enough to see a dr when at my old surgery, or told that they would be able to fit me in in 3 weeks time when I needed to be seen today!

As for my ds, who we thougt might have CP last friday, we are still not sure. His spots started going down yesterday and never blistered/scabbed over, so we are going to presume that he has not had CP as we can't be certain.

How is your dd today Spring??

What's very clear is that there's a lot of inconsistency not only about how different practices handle cp but also appointments ranging from the ideal where you phone for an appt and you get one whenever you want it to systems which are mind-blowingly inefficient and inconvenient for patients and GPs. A lot of disatisfaction around too and not just mine!

Dd1 still has v. definite spots but no other symptoms and no blisters or scabs. Dd2 has no spots apart from those mollusc thingies which she's had for a while and are unconnected which might again may mean it is less likely to be cp?? Going to GP later today as the problem of contagion doesn't seem to apply on Mondays so I'll let you know what he says heartmum!

ds1 had what we thought was a very bad chickenpox infection. We saw the GP on several occasions, but he decided he couldn't treat it. He rang a private dermatologist who refused to see us (because many of his patients have cancer), so then rang the NHS dermatologist, who saw us the next day. It wasn't chickenpox, it was eczema herpeticum. (and lucky it was treated as can be fatal).

We did wait in the GP's surgery with eveyone else, but then the first specialist refused to see us, so bit confusing policy all round really.

A useful warning to those who think those with suspected chickenpox don't need to be seen by a GP Jimjams.

Well I don't know, I didn't take ds2 or ds3 to the docs, but ds1 was obviously very bad, and needed treating whatever it was. I do think most HV should be able to dx chickenpox, eczema herpeticum is very rare and commonly misdiagnosed. It also doesn't usually look like chickenpox, but it is often quite confined I think.

On the subject of Doctor Receptionist horrors thought I would add in support that IMO they have absolutely no right to ask why you want to see a.DR. I am currently pregnant and at 20 weeks I became very poorly with a Chest Infection, I was initially given Antibiotics and seemed to get better, a week later I suddenly developed symptoms again and over the weekend deteriorated rapidly, both Husband and myself knew that I was very poorly, on Monday morning we rang surgery, explained, and was rudely refused an appointment..... it was the Receptionists opinion that I didn't need further treatment, she suggested that my Husband made me a cup of tea !!!!! My temperature was through the roof.... I was clearly not getting any better and by the evening I was rushed to hospital in an Ambulance where they diagnosed Pneumonia and kept me in for a week. Both Baby and I are fine now, but we (Husband and I ..... not Baby!!!!!)are furious that the Receptionist added to what was already a stressful and upsetting experience.

ohjone thing I've taken to doing if I don't want to take the children into the drs (which I don't if I can avoid it as its a nightmare) is ask the doc to ring me back - he does that happily. Can be another option, they can then say if they need to see you.

I had similar recently and because my kids were so young they said a doctor would phone me back. This duly happened and offered me an appointment just to clarify the situation because we weren't sure if it was CP or not. I went to the docs but was told to state to the receptionist that it may be CP so that I could wait elsewhere. I think this is reasonable and think how pissed off you would be if you were at the doc's for something else and got infected with CP whilst you were in the waiting room. I'd have been only too happy for an HV to come out. As it turned out DD didn't have CP but impetigo so needed antiseptic cream anyway.

Um... if they don't want contagious children in reception, why don't they offer a house call?

Or is that one of those old fashioned things that progress has made obsolete now?

Update: We were not shown to a separate room while waiting. Doctor didn't know whether dd1 has chickenpox for sure but thinks probably not. Didn't think she is contagious either way and can go to nursery. Interestingly he said he had seen several children who definitely did have cp this week so it seems like it was the receptionist and practice manager who made the decision to refuse me an appt off their own back and this is not even usually the policy of the surgery. He diagnosed dd2 with molluscum contagiosum as predicted and I can now tell nursry this with confidence. He also prescribed an epipen for dd2 and has referred her for allergy testing which the HV should have doen months ago when I saw her and didn't.