Junior Doctors Strikes

[chrcoluk]

I’m not sure it’s the targets as such tbh. We personally run a blend of options. We have bookable up to 4 weeks in advance. Some only book able in advance with a doctor say so, some urgent on the day and some embargoed for all bookings but open up a few days ahead so can be semi urgent or if not used add to the urgent on the day.

The models of telephone or online triage on day or massive queues of “you’ll be called at some point today” are all just ways for demand management and it’s a symptom of things being too busy

My surgery allows GPs to book in advance, but I have never managed to get staff to book anything for me other than same day.

I used to be able to get round it by booking online as I could login 8am, and grab one of the few slots they unlocked, but now they have blocked online bookings, so its fighting with 100s of other people for 2-3 appointments.

Reason available appointments are so low as most are taken by GPs booking them in advance.

This isnt speculation either its been confirmed over the phone, by my GP, and by management of the surgery sending letters out to patients on why they wont let people book in advance. My GP gets round it if they want me to see them again in future, they will book it in advance on the spot for me. But that only works for repeat appointments when the GP themselves want you to see them.
Staff can also do it for specific reasons, like when I had a blood test, one rang me up and told me a GP needed to speak to me and gave me a choice of advance dates for it, in the end it was (in my opinion) a wasted slot as the call was just to tell me everything is ok.

Also there is no online consultations, like no email/ticket system, I can imagine simple queries could be made direct to GPs, that take up way less than 10 minutes and this would massively improve efficiency, lower demand in my opinion.

 

[arknor]

You dont have your 10 minutes, thats just the spacing between appointments. Some people will have 1 problem that takes 45 minutes or more to sort and other problems are quick. Just because one patient has a quick problem sorted in 5 mins means there is time going free.

I thought it was a requirement as per the contract they have?


Also seems not long ago GPs were arguing for longer appointments

GPs say 10-minute appointment with doctor is too short

Royal College of GPs wants patients to be allocated 15-minute slots

www.theguardian.com

“It is abundantly clear that the standard 10-minute appointment is unfit for purpose. It’s increasingly rare for a patient to present with a just single health condition and we cannot deal with this adequately in 10 minutes,” said Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, the college’s chair.

“GPs want to deliver truly holistic care to our patients, considering all the physical, psychological and social factors potentially impacting on their health. But this depends on us having more time to spend with patients and the resources and people to allow us to do this.”

Weirdly that GP talks about multiple ailments in the 10 minute slot, something my surgery doesn't allow and I thought was standard?

If I could discuss more than one issue at a time I'd probably have found out a lot sooner that I likely have a hyper active thyroid.

I've been on meds for stomach acid for a few years now, had other things like going to the toilet a lot more, and being thirsty I never mentioned..

I assumed it was probably diabetes and with how hard it is to get appointments anyway I never bothered going back about that on it's own.

seems it probably wasn't GERDS in the first place but a Hyper active thyroid that's gradually gotten worse...

I thought other symptoms weere unrelated so felt like I wasn't allowed to ask...

I once asked if a GP could quickly have a check on a rather large weird mole on my back.. looked at my like I was dog poop for something that takes 10 seconds.... can literally just pull my collar down at the back and it's visible.


NHS is not really fit for purpose in my experience, or atleast the gateway to it which is heavily guarded, often by rude receptionists who treat everyone as time wasters

I wonder how many long term medical conditions could have been picked up years sooner, but people wait until it's "bad enough" before trying to see a GP, and then it ends up costing the NHS a lot more.

 

[chrcoluk]

All these issues will be a factor as well as to why we have increasing levels of long term sickness in the working age.

 

[heeeed]

Ahh the good old vocation argument. If you limit your pool to people who are willing to be endentured slaves then you will get a very small pool of talent and miss out on probably the best people, as well as the slaves will burn out shortly into their career. Why on earth do you think because someone wants to do something of value that they shouldn’t want to be treated reasonably and paid appropriately?

 

[Minstadave]

I thought it was a requirement as per the contract they have?

The 10 minutes per appointment schedule is but that doesn't mean every patient has a protected 10 minutes all to themselves.

 

[heeeed]

Also there is no online consultations, like no email/ticket system, I can imagine simple queries could be made direct to GPs, that take up way less than 10 minutes and this would massively improve efficiency, lower demand in my opinion.

They probably have some online option but they may switch off at times for demand. You can sometimes do some stuff via online forms and quicker, but ultimately it all becomes another stream of work when there is no time in a day to do it. many people ask questions that can’t be done online and you’ve spent time reading through stuff to then send them a text to book an appointment. Suddenly 3 mins of my day has been totally wasted and nobody has gained a thing.

 

[heeeed]

The 10 minutes per appointment schedule is but that doesn't mean every patient has a protected 10 minutes all to themselves.

There is nothing contractual about 10 mins in fact it’s just the custom in UK. Many other countries do longer. If you do longer though you can’t do as many….

 

[chrcoluk]

They probably have some online option but they may switch off at times for demand. You can sometimes do some stuff via online forms and quicker, but ultimately it all becomes another stream of work when there is no time in a day to do it. many people ask questions that can’t be done online and you’ve spent time reading through stuff to then send them a text to book an appointment. Suddenly 3 mins of my day has been totally wasted and nobody has gained a thing.

Nope is no online consultations at my surgery, they just stuck in the stone age sadly.

The only online is able to order prescriptions, request medication. Used to be online booking but the surgery turned it off.