What's making it difficult to see a GP these days?

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Soldato
Joined
10 May 2004
Posts
13,059
Location
Sunny Stafford
I had a viral back in November and on my return to work, I went stone deaf. My manager told me to book into the GP. Phone the surgery at 8AM as advised, line's engaged for 10 minutes and when I finally get through, all of the same-day bookings are gone. Phone again next day 8AM and the same happens. Eventually, a slot did open up but 3 weeks in the future. What use was that? I did take it though, and when the day came, I was still a bit deaf but the docs didn't find anything. It's the principle though, in that they could have found something had I've been seen earlier.

Now the lovely propagandist paper that is the Daily Express is running this on their front page this morning. Is it a scare story or are missed appointments really that high? I think that patients should pay a £10 deposit. Quick Android / Apple Pay etc when on the phone to bookings. Then if it was genuine, then you get the £10 back. Surely this should get rid of some of the posers. Plus, you get a few text reminders anyway!

I've been with the same surgery since 2002 and booking an appointment was never a problem for me up until 2016 when I last needed to see a GP. Something has happened in those past 3 years.

P.S. The fact that I've posted an Express story is not an invitation to diss immigrants. A lot of them are skilled and in the medical field. I don't think that immigrants is the issue.

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The GP Surgery where my parents live had a queue system on the phones and one woman who just answered the phones in the morning - as soon as 8am hits then the lines are open and you get told your place in the queue by the automated system... so you just hang on until it is answered in turn.

The GP surgery where I live in London was staffed for a while by inept muppets, you'd have to queue up in person at 8am (fortunately I live nearby, like less than 100 meters away) - you'd often hear the phones ringing when giving your details at the desk, occasionally one of the fat dinner lady types would answer it, seemingly looking very put out that someone even had the audacity to phone up. They've finally embraced technology now though and have gone with an online booking system, you can actually access the appointments for the next day the evening beforehand and pick the GP you want to see (the receptionists used to get their angry face on if you requested a particular GP when booking in person even if it was a followup and it made sense to see the GP you'd seen previously).

The silly thing is that there is still often a queue in the morning, you can walk past it and just check in using a touchscreen on the reception desk if you've got an appointment booked already in advance or via the online system. On one hand there are presumably a fair few stupid/lazy people who haven't signed up for the online service which is advertised clearly in the surgery, on the other hand there are probably some old people who won't be interested in that and who the surgery probably shouldn't be getting to queue up in the cold for 30mins before the doors open at 8 if they want an appointment. I think they should introduce the phone queue instead of that, at least old folks would be happy to use the phone if not able or willing to get online.
 
rebel rebel said:
Surely suddenly becoming stone deaf is enough of an emergency to be able to go to A&E?
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He can't have been all that deaf if he was attempting to use the phone.

Regardless A&E is supposed to be for more serious stuff, walk in clinics etc.. are the next step up form GP surgery where available AFAIK.

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Pawnless Endgame said:
I went stone deaf. My manager told me to book into the GP. Phone the surgery at 8AM as advised
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How did that explanation go btw...?

"Hi Boss, I can't come in I'm stone deaf"

"OK, can you get to your GP"

"Yeah I'll try to phone them next to get an appointment"

"Cool, and you're definitely sure you're stone deaf, you can't hear a thing at the moment right?"

"Yeah that's right boss, I'm completely deaf at the moment, I can't hear anything"

"erm OK, I'll take your word for it"
 
dowie said:
He can't have been all that deaf if he was attempting to use the phone.

Regardless A&E is supposed to be for more serious stuff, walk in clinics etc.. are the next step up form GP surgery where available AFAIK.
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That's a very good point! :D

I've used the hotline in the past, and they have advised me to either go to a walk in clinic or A&E.
 
I suspect part of the reason it's harder to get an appointment is the shortage of GP's, which seems to be getting worse.

Our town has grown massively in the last 20 years but the number of GP's hasn't increased anything like as fast, and now it appears our biggest surgery (created when two of the GP practices merged) is having financial troubles and having to lay off staff.
This is a surgery that at one point had about 10+ dull time GP's, at least half a dozen (if not many more) nurses and nurse practioners etc*, and is now an utter nightmare to get an appointment with, you either turn up on the day before something like 11am and wait and you will eventually be seen by a nurse who'll triage you (from memory) and then on to a GP but it can take most of the day, or you try and get an appointment on the phone/online (I think they may keep them separate to avoid everything going to those with easy internet access), and hope for the best.

It's changed dramatically in just 18 months or so, as when my mother was ill it was sometimes a pain to get an appointment but not impossible, but about 9 months ago (coinciding with things getting far worse) several of the GP's left/got fired/didn't get their temp contracts renewed, including probably the best GP we've had in 20+ years, who was basically a long term locum and went out of her way to be helpful when my mother's alziemers was first being diagnosed, right up to the end where she rang after a callout to my mum and basically let us know it was "final days".

Given how many of the GP's in our town are European in origin, including the one above, I also can't help but wonder how many have decided the UK is not a good place to stay long term.


*About five to ten years ago I think the plan was for them to do far more in the way of minor injuries work as IIRC the local NHS trust/government was pushing it as a way of reducing A&E times, but I don't think the funding ever came through fully (after they'd bought a new larger surgery on the other side of town to act as their primary one as they'd long since outgrown their original one and traffic meant it was often hard for people on one side of town to reach their original location).
 
From experience 111 are pretty useless. Everytime I've called them their insta-go-to resolution has been to send an ambulance which has then ferried me to A&E for a few hours then discharged with NFA & a bewildered look from A&E docs when told 111 sent me.

With my GP surgery regarding missed appointments there's always a chart showing missed appointment time wastage, every month its almost a couple of days worth but beyond that nothing seemingly is done.
Off the back of that there's always at least 7-10 daywait for a pre-booked appointment unless the doc orders the appointment for you however this takes from the "emergency" appointment slots.

I live in a small town of no more than 15,000 residents and our local surgery has 12 GPS (10 resident, 2 nurse practitioners) On any given day (except weekends) there are 9 of these working in any config.
The surgery CLAIMS it's hours to be 08:30-18:30 however the reality (if you read fine print) shows that appointments are only available between 8:45-11:00 then 15:30-18:00.

I do think there should be some form of financial implications for missing appointments but I'm not sure a deposit type scheme would work. My Mrs is disabled, has hypothyroidism and pregnant, which puts her in the "high risk" category. All in all she pretty much has 3-4 appointments a week with various medical personnel so at £10 per appointment we'd be upto £160 a month out of pocket until the NHS refunded it, which as we know it to be a big lumbering sloth of a beast in terms of efficiency would most likely take an age to happen plus the cost of the scheme's Admin would probably dwarf any actual income from the missed appointments.

You've then got to look, with a deposit scheme, those than simply cannot afford it and would likely put off going to the GP because it meant they couldn't top up the gas meter for the week etc.
 
dowie said:
Regardless A&E is supposed to be for more serious stuff, walk in clinics etc.. are the next step up form GP surgery where available AFAIK.
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Annoyingly they've been closing down the walk in centres around here (which were actually really good and probably took quite a bit of pressure off the local A&E) and phasing some over to supplement the GP capabilities but doesn't really seem to have made much difference in terms of the GP side.

The whole system seems to need a serious overhaul - the online booking seems much better but still seems to have one leg in the past in terms of implementation.

Werewolf said:
I suspect part of the reason it's harder to get an appointment is the shortage of GP's, which seems to be getting worse.

Our town has grown massively in the last 20 years but the number of GP's hasn't increased anything like as fast, and now it appears our biggest surgery (created when two of the GP practices merged) is having financial troubles and having to lay off staff.
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That might be partly behind why they've been closing the walk in centres around here and phasing some over to GP capabilities - the town has grown considerably over the last few years and staffing levels seem to be on a decline.

As an aside also seems to be a problem with the opticians - I had no end of problems getting an appointment locally recently (apparently December is bad anyhow) with most of them having only odd (probably cancelled) appointment slots available for weeks in advance - when I went into one to talk about it apparently there is a shortage of Optometrists locally with some down to 1 that used to have 2-3 and even some places sharing one partly due to some leaving the country in the last few months. The surrounding towns though didn't seem as bad but I didn't want to travel 20 miles (one way) just to see an optician.
 
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About the stone deaf comments, I should have said in my OP - it was my right ear only. I wear hearing aids anyway, but I could still use the telephone with my left ear.

About going online, yes I was trying to get an appointment using that method too. It's called Patient Access. It was through that when I managed to get the appointment 3 weeks away. All attempts at getting an appointment by telephone were flat out refused.
 
The main obstacle at my surgery is getting past the receptionists and then the 'nurse practitioners' who IME are ******* useless.
 
I know a GP who is on some regional committee and he told me, about 3 years ago that in the medical field, becoming a GP is just not attractive to a large number of newly qualified doctors. He then went on to say that something like 1/3 of newly qualified ones take active steps to work abroad immediately (obviously that doesn't translate to that same number actually doing it). No wonder home grown doctors seem in short supply

As above, old people are becoming a larger proportion of the population, and their needs have become more complex and time consuming for GPs

Also, I wonder how many GPs like working part time or do locuming because it suits them
 
I had to go to the doctor 6 weeks ago about depression, rang up first thing and got an appointment the same day.

When my pills were about to run out I rang up and got an appointment the same day.

My only issue is that the IT is rubbish, they transferred systems in-between my appointments so I had to remind the doctor what medication and dosage she had put me on.
 
Pipe & Slippers said:
I know a GP who is on some regional committee and he told me, about 3 years ago that in the medical field, becoming a GP is just not attractive to a large number of newly qualified doctors. He then went on to say that something like 1/3 of newly qualified ones take active steps to work abroad immediately (obviously that doesn't translate to that same number actually doing it). No wonder home grown doctors seem in short supply

As above, old people are becoming a larger proportion of the population, and their needs have become more complex and time consuming for GPs

Also, I wonder how many GPs like working part time or do locuming because it suits them
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Couple of gamers I used to play with frequently while they studied to become doctors once qualified one went off to work for some French company internationally - don't know details but definitely not working in the UK and the other was off to NZ or Australia I can't remember which. Both had originally intended to work in the UK.
 
wesimmo said:
My only issue is that the IT is rubbish, they transferred systems in-between my appointments so I had to remind the doctor what medication and dosage she had put me on.
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Erm, so could you have stated a higher dosage and she had no ability to double check?
 
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