GP Triage is a JOKE

[CatsCoffeeChocolate]

Hi Ladies,

Just wanted to vent and ask if anyone had advice on what I can do. Sorry if it’s long.

My BMI is over 30, which therefore means I require a 5mg dose of Folic Acid on prescription from the GP. I know this because unfortunately I was in the same position with my last pregnancy.

however, things have changed since then. The only way to get an appointment with my surgery is to fill out an online request, which asks basic questions in regards to pregnancy issues that may require an appointment, e.g: are you experiencing pain? Are you bleeding? Are you vomiting excessively?

So, since my sickness has not yet started, and I’m more so concerned with getting the folic acid so as to avoid any neural tube defects, I obviously had to answer no to the questions.

Long story short, they offered me an appointment for 3 weeks time. That’s way too long for me to wait, so I rang them directly and had an awful experience with the receptionist telling me I need to book online and refusing to help, saying that I’ve “been triaged as non urgent” and therefore there is nothing to be done. I explained my concerns of how it would possibly affect the baby….. she simply said there was nothing she could do.

So, I need some advice please ladies?
Anyone had a similar experience?
Any ideas how I can get the folic acid I require?

Email the surgery, or fill in an admin request form. You don’t need an appointment. If no luck, phone the midwives and get them to call/email.

When I was a community midwife, this was always a ball ache. Most surgeries were good but the occasional one were really tricky about prescribing for obstetric patients which then meant we had to leave massive lists for the consultant when they visited once per week for women who otherwise had no need to see them 🙄

180 tablets in a bottle in Asda is what I used. Bottle didn't last long at 12 a day plus a multivitamin. But far cheaper than a private prescription.

If you can’t get the prescription in time you should be able to order multiple bottles of the low dose folic acid online eg Boots always has 3 for 2 on vitamins and have definitely brought 3 packs at a time before.

It is a shame midwives can’t prescribe basic medication for pregnant women. I recently spent quite awhile chasing up a prescription for aspirin in pregnancy due to an admin error from the GP which would have saved everyone time if the midwife could have just prescribed it directly.

Honestly OP, I would go down in person. sometimes it's the only way. such a consistent time suck to get a basic service such as prescriptions or low level care from these places.

I think you are creating a mountain out of a molehill here.

Just buy some folic acid tablets from the pharmacy / supermarket and take two.

It is a nightmare trying to get prescriptions sometimes.
My advice would be to order as much as you can from different online pharmacies and buy whatever you can from real shops. Dont waste time trying to deal with staff. They can't help.
Even if you can't get the full 5mg dose, whatever you can cobble together will tide you over until you get the proper script. At least it will be better than nothing.

5mg is available online for around £9

@CatsCoffeeChocolate this sounds like an utter nightmare!
What about a GP walk-in centre? or a private GP appointment, grating though that is, given you have paid into the NHS via your taxes all your working life. I really worry about the state of the NHS, there seems to be so many barriers to getting even the most basic service these days.

Amazon do bottles of 400 tablets, you could take 12 tablets until you manage to get the prescription.

amzn.eu/d/0J058BU

Can you see a private GP?

I really get it with the whole appointment thing having just waited 2 weeks for one for my 7 month old, but I can also see how they would class this as non urgent.

And to the people saying just take 2 etc…the usual dose in a tablet is 400 micrograms but the OP needs 5 milligrams!!

So I’ve went to supermarkets and bought an obscene amount of the lower dose tablets, since each box would only last 5days.

I think I made a mistake in speaking with the pharmacists first, as of course, they were being very cautious and so wouldn’t even allow me to buy the lower dose after I explained how many I intended on taking.

I plan on just taking 12 of the lower dose tablets each day until I can get the 5mg prescription.

Thanks everyone. ☺️

I never took any folic acid or vitamins when pregnant, it wasn't a thing in those days and 3rd baby was an accident , all my kids were ok

Well done?

I had an early scan and twins. You need higher dose then too. I was just told to go to pharmacy and they prescribed them under minor ailments.

I agree. Speaking to pharmacists can cause more trouble than it is worth. Once they know your situation they go out of their way to make things more difficult.
Good luck op.

Final update:

The note the receptionist sent along to the GP must have done the trick, because I have just received a text to say they have sent the prescription to my local pharmacy.

🤗😅

Thanks again everyone.

Glad that you've resolved it.

Your title really isn't fair though - Triage is the process of prioritising needs.

Your priority need was very low, and you were able to resolve it yourself - so it was right that other people's higher clinical needs were dealt with before you.

@Womblingmerrily I already said to myself that I would no longer respond to people providing unnecessary commentary, but just so you are aware, the GP RECEPTIONIST herself complained about the new online system and that there is only a set amount of options to answer yes or no to, and the rest get overlooked. It is a fault within the system. My issue is not with the idea of triage, but rather the current online system.
YOU may not deem my future child having a disability as a high priority, but I DO, and apparently so did the receptionist in question. Who went above and beyond to fully understand the situation, then send along a message to the GP, which resulted in me finally getting the required prescription. I would of course not want to skip or overlook people with a higher priority of medical issue, but I think it is very valid and fair that I get annoyed with the issues in the system, which would have left me unseen for 3 weeks with a pregnancy concern, which could have an effect on the health of my unborn baby.

You could have just read the post that my issue was resolved, then left the thread, but instead you felt the need to respond and start an issue with the labelling of the thread? Please, find yourself some hobbies and concern yourself with the more important issues in the world.

OP, I commented because your thread title did not reflect the content of your message. Your title was inflammatory.

I clarified what triage is for.

Your reply was immensely rude and whilst you deem your situation as very important to you, it was in fact something you could deal with yourself, which you did so.

Next time, I suggest your try self help before starting posts calling GP triage a joke - it is not, it is an effective mechanism to help those in greatest need to get help first. If some people who could help themselves are pushed to do so, then double win.

Congratulations.

I would have put a medication request in for this.

Just in case you have more children in the future, ideally you should be taking the medication for 3 months before starting ttc.

Glad you resolved it OP, getting a GP appointment is just a joke these days.

I'm with you OP, it is a joke, it's a box ticking exercise and if you don't tick the right boxes you have to wait for weeks. Like so much in the NHS now there is no dealing with individuals, it's just ticking boxes and covering themselves. No one listens or cares, they just make sure they've ticked all their boxes.

I ended up getting an independent midwife 8 months into my pregnancy for this very reason. I had been through so much stress, no one would listen to me and it was the best thing I've ever done, worth every penny, a completely and utterly different experience. It was literally worlds apart.

Oh FFS.
OP has had a mega frustrating day because she needed access to preventative medicine asap. What followed was a horrible kind of ´computer says no’ nightmare because the NHS is struggling to keep up with demand. It’s not a good thing and should not be accepted as normal that patients trying to do the right thing to prevent future health problems cannot easily access the care they need in time for it to be effective. Every single one of the health care professionals who had to say no to her request today will have felt frustrated about it. The time wasted by OP, the pharmacists she spoke to, the midwives who can’t see her until after booking in- everyone except the GP who was able to write the prescription and the secretary who was able to organize it - all of that was wasted time and NHS ressources because an overstretched system becomes increasingly inefficient as problems occur.
Although in all likelihood OP’s baby would have been fine on the standard dose of folic acid, at a population level this higher dose for pregnant mothers with a high BMI reduces the incidence of spina bifida. A baby born with spina bifida will require enormous medical ressources. The fact it was so difficult for OP to access the cheap preventative medicine means other mothers may give up and more babies may be born with spina bifida. It is not OP’s fault she had difficulty getting this prescription today and it is not an over reaction on her part to find the situation absurd and alarming. The NHS needs more money and more gps.

@Womblingmerrily Apologies, but if you do not like it when people are rude to you, then perhaps you should not do it to others. Your message came across as judgmental and as looking to cause issues where there needn’t be.

I would agree that the thread title should be changed to reflect the issue, but unfortunately I wrote that whilst feeling very emotional, and I couldn’t actually edit the title once it was made, nor would it let me delete the thread and start a new one instead.

There is nothing more I can do. I explained to you that I do not have issues with the process of triage, especially not when carried out with a physical person who can ask questions in response to your answers, and fully assess the issue. However I was making a negative judgement on the online system of triage which consists of nothing but tickboxes of common symptoms.

Again, I understand what the prospect of triage is as a whole, and that is not my issue.

I am unsure why you seem to have taken this so personal, but it really is not. Look through the comments and you will see a prior midwife who spoke of issues with the system. She did not judge my thread title or pass negative comments on it, she just provided some helpful advice.

I know you don’t like the thread title, but I see many things on here that I do not agree with. However, I don’t feel the need to pass on negative comments or try to belittle someone for using inflammatory language. I move on, scroll away, concern myself with other things, which is what I will be doing with this thread henceforth.

As explained, the thread title cannot be edited or deleted, therefore it remains. I’m sorry this upsets you.