Those who work full-time - would you be happy to pay £20 to see your doctor out of hours?

[CountessDracula]

Read in the paper tonight that there is a proposal to make GP services available in the evenings for a charge of say £20

Personally I would be happy to pay for this to avoid taking time off work, what do you feel?

To clarify, imo they should without a charge.

The £20 is presumably to put you off using it = two-tier service. Against the whole ethos of the NHS.

When I was in my teens-20s our Dr's practice had surgeries every evening between 5 and 7 p.m., and Sat morning 9 -10 a.m.

It was a group practice, so they took it in turns, had a rota to do the surgeries, and of course did night call-outs and daytime house calls where needed.
Dr's then were paid considerably less than now.
Our practice here has 5 Drs. I don't understand why it is no longer possible to do niht callouts on a rota basis, let alone why evening/saturday surgeries are impossible, especially on the large income that a GP is now able to earn.

That said, yes, we would pay if it were possible to see someone at OUR practice for "out of hours" appointments. If dh has to take time off from work to see the Dr then he loses money (self-employed contractor) so to us it would make sense. But I still don't understand why it is impossible for Drs in a group practice to rota their time to work evenings and weekends..

Interesting really as NHS is assumably free at point of service BUT depends on what service and when - why should routine day time non urgent stuff be available at beck and call for no extra charge - a plumber charges a LOT more out of hours as does a locksmith etc - and otter sorry but vets aren't free at all but exorbitant IMO ;)
Loobylobby charming what exactly does your GP not do to deserve the money v hard job IMO sorting out the serious from the trivial and if something is missed may be a life on the line how much is that worth???
Personally I think the government is to blame they allowed GP's to opt out of 24 hr care and now are not happy to pay for decent out of hours care but happy to blame the GP's for this !

i have to fit GP appointments into times when we have a carer. would happily pay £20 to get an appointment at a time to suit me.

was very lucky to get two appointments today at a time to suit me.

My GP does two lateish surgeries a week for working people they are great

I would be happy to pay £20 if it meant I could see a doctor - right now I can never get in to see my GP so if it is urgent end up going private and it costs more than £20!

Well the government balled up didn't they - they negotiated the new GP contract which allowed GP's to opt out of out of hours care - they underesimated how much GP's did out of goodwill and patient care and seriously underestimated how much good out of hour care costs!

Not really.

Would rathertake the time off work- but then I have reasonable HR policies and bosses that allow this.

Doesn't sound very 'free at the point of care' to me.

The expectation would then become that if you work 9-5 (or have other reasons why 'normal' hours are no good for you) then you should pay...not could pay by choice

yes Macdoodle, typical of this govt not listening to the professionals who actually do the job

the fact is if it were free folk would abuse it

out of hours provision are already stretched cos too many folk take non emergency cases to emergency services

we see it at vets all the time

folk expect to see you - when they find out they have to pay - all too often they say - actually its not that bad

nhs provides 24 phone help

otherwise take an hour either side of woring day - most people will still be paid for this time - what is the issue?

Yes, a locksmith and a plumber do charge a lot more. They are in business to make as much money as possible - fair enough.

A hospital nurse, hospital doctor in acute services, cleaner, porter, ambulance driver, cook, hca, person that answers 999 calls - none of these people charge more for working out of hours. Yes they get overtime and some will get an extra payment for working antisocial hours (which doesn't include Saturday mornings) but they work shifts just like a high percentage of the workforce in this country.

Yes Tigana and yet another example of those who work subsidising those who won't (please note I said won't not can't for whatever reason so don't have a go)!

Actually bookthief you will find that most hospital services who work out of hours do get paid more also non medical staff usually get a payment for shift allowance which is more ....but irrelevant really a few good points otter yes it would be abused simple really and it really isn't the GP's fault ( a little inside info before the new GP contract if you worked out what GP's earnt for their out of hour work it was a ridiculous sum of about 26p/hour and the government ignored this fact so of course now they don't have to most won't for that kinda of money would you make life or death decisons for less than a shelf stacker earns???)

And bookthief why don't you think GP's can make money don't they have families mortgages etc and most of them massive student loans - just to clarify should it be out of charity???

Otter, interesting that people will pay for an appointment for their pets, but not themselves

yes Ceolas !! very true shocking what some folk will spend on a hammy!!! also shocking that some willl not spend

can be heart breaking!

Thats why I have pet insurance

dp said would mumsnetters be preaped to work round the clock for the odd £20

very wise mcdoodle!

Actually, with NHS24 we are heading towards a 24hr service up here. People really abuse the system and are seen by GPs out of hours for things that could quite happily wait til the morning.

I would love to be able to have an evening appointment as i do supply work so if i dont work i dont get paid but i would not be able or want to pay £20 for an appointment and then prescription charges on top. I dont see it working.

In Aus about 40% of the population has private medical insurance which covers most of the cost of seeing a private GP. If that were available here I would jump at the chance to avoid the restrictions around seeing an NHS doctor.

Well I suspect your £20 won't give you access to your gp at 3am on a Sunday morning so no-one is talking about them working around the clock for £20.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect gp surgeries to make themselves more accessible to their working patients by holding surgeries on, say, Saturday mornings and one evening until 8pm. I don't think that individuals should be expected to pay extra for such a service.

As for it being abused, well then we should be charged for all appointments given all that abusing of the doctor's time that people do. Tricky thing is working out who is put off because it wasn't important and who is put off because they didn't have the £20.

For what it's worth, I do think that we should pay the extra - through our taxes.

I would happily pay. Our GPs don't do an appointment system. You have to ring up at 8.30am the day you want to be seen, the phone is permanently engaged and when you get through all appointments are gone for the day and you are told to try the next day!

Yes if it meant I could be guaranteed an appointment 99% of the time.