Edinburgh - no medical access

[GaribaldiGirl]

My daughter is at Edinburgh and cannot register with the university medical centre because they are full. It seems all the local GPs are also full. So we will have to pay for a private GP. Luckily we can afford it, but anyone applying now be aware that this may be a problem.

It’s the same for my DD at Stirling- I think it is a national problem in the major cities.

We had this (not students though) she will need to call the NHS Lothian health board. The number's on this page.

It took them a few goes to do it but they basically 'forced' us onto a GP's books.

The GPs around here seem to be telling new people that they're 'full' as a matter of course, and making everyone go through the health board. It's far from ideal. However, the health board were helpful albeit with a couple of email nudges to hurry the process along and got it sorted for us.

My son was trying to re-register after university back to our GP who has looked after him since birth and their documents implied he could not register as we were out of area (that is news to the rest of us who are still on their books and his twin!) In the end he went down there and they gave him an email address and documents to complete, full ID etc despite having been with them for 20 years and we ignored the written bit about not being in their area / boundary and they registered him eventually. Although we assume there is virtually no NHS care these days anyway - pity we cannot just opt out of it and not pay that part of our income tax that goes into it.

Boundaries change over time @Xenia. The same happens at the surgery where I work. We have families who have been registered with us for years but who no longer live within the practice boundary. If one family member moves away & then comes back they have to be re-allocated to us by the local authorities. We can't just register them without them being officially allocated.

As for the OP - I'm not sure if things are different in Scotland, but in England you would have to contact the local health authority who will allocate you to a practice.

Yes as PP says you need to contact NHS Lothian. Basically they will "allocate" someone to a GP practice and said practice then needs to accept them.
If DD is resident in Edinburgh she is entitled to an nhs GP in Lothian

Thanks! My daughter says she has tried the health board and not getting anywhere but will undertake some motherly supervision.

@GaribaldiGirl

Thanks! My daughter says she has tried the health board and not getting anywhere but will undertake some motherly supervision.

Yeah you have to push a bit. They say you can do it over the phone but that wasn't the case for us 'because of covid'. They're obliged to make something happen though so keep at it (or encourage your daughter to). The GPs will stonewall you until the end of time so the health board is the only way to get things moving! In all likelihood she'll end up being allocated to the uni medical centre anyway.

Has she tried calling into St Leonard’s on Pleasance?

This has just been covered on Radio 4. A lawyer on the program suggested that Edinburgh law students could help out with getting the uni to fulfil their duty of care: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0010fkc

Must be extra annoying for international students who have paid upfront for four years NHS cover.

Luckily our lovely GP at home was prepared to do consultation and prescription and talk to a pharmacy in Edinburgh about emailing it as English GPs apparently can’t send electronic prescriptions to Scotland.
Suspected kidney infection.
I have spent hours trying to sort it. Tried registering as temporary patient at some of the local practises (not possible). Had long chat with university medical centre to see if she could at least do a urine culture (no). It was suggested she just ‘keeps trying to register as capacity may ease’. Also no private GP appointments available till tomorrow pm - presumably clogged up with unregistered students.
Have also tried the health board to see about registering somewhere. They don’t take phone calls (obviously) so will just have to wait and keep emailing.
Edinburgh University is a disgrace. They seem to want the students fees without actually having to see the students in any capacity. My daughter is in her second year and so far has had one hour of face to face contact with her faculty.

Glad I’ve got that off my chest. Rant over!!!

Will try St Leonard’s. Thanks for tip 😄

GG, that's terrible. It is not acceptable from a university in loco parentis almost for young people on their own for the first time.

Coffee, but in our case they DID re-register him without any kind of allocation so it all sounds a bit weird. Anyway he is regitered back at home now.

That's awful GG. Has your DD being trying to find a GP for 4 weeks (it's Week 4 in Edinburgh)? . DD also 2nd year but she stayed registered from last year as friends said much easier to get your home town GP to see you in the summer than reregistering in Edinburgh each year. In the event she stayed over the summer for work.

Yes she’s been trying for 4 weeks. We’ve only just tried the Lothian NHS board - you can’t speak to them (obviously) but you can send an email.

Tried St Leonard’s as suggested by PP. Not taking any new patients.

It’s not a pleasant experience to have a sick child 7 hours away with no GP cover.

Has she tried calling NHS 111? They might allow her to come to one of the out of hours clinics until she is allocated a GP.

This is one reason A&E is utterly swamped currently as in many areas it is the only way to see a real doctor face to face even when you know it is not an A&E matter but waiting 4 hours there is the only way to get some kind of service on the NHS many of us spend a small fortune in income tax to fund. Almost every medical service my sons have needed at university I have had to pay - thousands of pounds as in practice there is no NHS care for many things these days despite our paying more into it than ever since My father first joined it as a doctor in the 1940s

She tried 111 and they said she needed to go to her GP (7 hours away).

She now has antibiotics thanks to our GP at home and a helpful pharmacist in Edinburgh.

I have read reports about the GP crisis and where we live we have never had any problems. And I’m shocked at the university not sorting out adequate care for their students. The university medical centre offers nothing to the many students who are not registered with them - and my daughter tried to register as soon as she arrived.

Good grief @GaribaldiGirl I'm so sorry your poor DD is going through this, that's appalling. Since when did it become so difficult to see a GP in this country!

As PP says remember NHS 24 and 111 who may be able to get her an out of hours appointment.

I'm not excusing Edinburgh uni at all as they haven't behaved well during the pandemic but this is not just a student problem. It's a national shortage of GPs, they are leaving in their droves.

I would be inclined to get her to email her MSP as they can take it up with NHS Lothian on her behalf.
If she has an SNP MSP I would also be inclined to contact Miles Briggs, Conservative list MSP for the Lothians. As an opposition MSP he is good at taking up issues which he thinks Scot Gov are not doing enough about, and I'm pretty sure he would want to know about this.

Hope your DD feels better soon.

This is at least partly to do with the sheer number of students currently - everyone met their conditions last year so we're in a bumper year. Accommodation is also horrific ( both in terms of availability and expense). Catchment areas don't help as students tend to cluster and fill the GP rolls (and people often don't deregister when they leave uni until they actively need health care somewhere else). Keep plugging away at the health board level to get a registration. I think there's a statutory duty in there somewhere.

I have a DD in her first year at Edinburgh - she has found it impossible to register with a GP too - thanks to PP for the advice re the Lothian NHS Board as we are not Scottish so didn’t know that.

She is really struggling mentally as so much is on line; only 3 hours per week face to face tutorials. She really needs some support and is getting nowhere.

I will pursue the Lothian route - does anyone have any experience of what the Student Counselling Service is like? I am encouraging her to self refer using this service but she has not done this yet.

It became difficult to see a GP when the numbers of GPs shrank to the smallest number ever despite demand being higher than it has ever been in the history of the NHS.
People need to remember that the primary care service receives less than 9% of the NHS budget and deals with 91% of all patient NHS contacts in the UK.
The service we provide is frankly bloody brilliant - but I accept it's rubbish compared to the service we used to be able to provide.
When patients complain I point out that I'd love to go back to the good old days too. I used to see 32 patients a day, start at 8.30, have an hour to do exercise at lunchtime, do all the prescriptions etc and leave at 6.15 every day.
This morning I started just before 8, dealt with 130 patients (plus prescriptions etc), didn't leave my desk other than to go to the bathroom twice and left at 8pm.
Oh and I was paid considerably more in the old days as well.
If you want to moan about things then moan about government funding (And don't moan about the pittance of your income tax that goes to the NHS and then also moan that the service is bad).
I can't wait to retire...

@Chilldonaldchill it does seem to be regional as the GP service is excellent where we live.

Not moaning about the NHS staff, who seem to work like Trojans.

The absolute number of doctors has gone up in the last 20 years but the number of doctors per 1000 has gone down because our population has grown by 10 million (6 million of them from the EU). You can’t blame the GPs of course but you can blame a system that allows the population to keep growing without medical, education and housing investment to support it.

I do also think Edinburgh university has done a very poor job.

@GaribaldiGirl
A very significant proportion of that figure actually work in and prop up the NHS. So it's nowhere near as simple as that. More of them work in the NHS proportionally than the rest of the population.
In my practice we have an identical size population to 20 years ago, offer just over double the number of appointments as 20 years ago and still can't meet demand. It's not the bigger population that's the main problem, it's an ageing population, many of whom have complex health needs which are now entirely looked after in general practice - along with a significant proportion of a generation of teenagers and twenty/thirty-something's who have grown up with a "I want this now" culture. I can't tell you the number of "I'm a bridesmaid/it's my birthday /I'm going on holiday tomorrow and I've developed a sore throat this morning" type consultations which develop into fully fledged tantrums when I explain that my magic wand isn't working that day...
Without the immigrants shoring up our NHS (and paying their surcharge for the privilege of using the NHS whilst helping run it) we'd be even further up the creek...

OP (and others) thanks for posting this. DD2 is looking at Edinburgh for a possible PhD but she has Type I so would absolutely need access to a GP, and to prescriptions, from the word 'go'. She's pretty on top of her health needs and has already been to 2 different universities but not being able to register with a doctor for a couple of weeks would be problematic.

This is why I love MN. No other way we would have known this was an issue until it was too late, so if it's of any consolation GaribaldiGirl you have flagged up something very important for our family, thank you. And I hope your DD gets seen and feels better soon.

@thing47 Edinburgh is a wonderful city but I would rate the University very poorly in terms of where the students are in their list of priorities.

@Chilldonaldchill I think we are super lucky where I live - you can see a GP if you need or choose to or have a telephone consultation but you have to get past a Ruby Rottweiler on reception. Those sore throated Generation ‘Y’ers would never get through!!