NHS=Negligent Health Service

heeeed said:
I have some knowledge of rothbury surgery having done a registrar job there 20 years ago. The surgery was in converted housing over 2 stories and totally inadequate for modern practice. It was never owned by the NHS or signed over to the doctors, it had always been owned by the partnership. They had started the process of designing the new hospital when I was there and it looks like it took a good few years after that before finished. It was the doctors who started that recognising their current building was not up to the job. When they moved into up to date building then they pay rent and service charges to be there. The old building was always theirs to do with what they wanted so if they sold prime plot right in centre of a pretty town I’m sure it will have made them money, but it was their asset to with what they wanted. The branch surgery in longframlington also had never been owned by the NHS but was built by the partners again.
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The info I got from a certain person's estates manager (you probably know who) was that it originally was an NHS asset that was essentially gifted to the GP practice.
As you say it is in a prime town centre location and was sold for a very tidy sum. Or rather several as they split it up.

Yes, they do pay rent to be at the new(ish) hospital but that's basically just passing money in a circle as that money is largely from the NHS!
 
Dis86 said:
My personal gp works Mondays and Fridays. That's it. If I want to see a gp during the other 3 days of the week I am being told it can only be via phonecall. On the last call I had I could clearly hear her kids playing in the background and she apologised as their TV was too loud.
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Then move GPs. Plenty of others available.
 
heeeed said:
Do you think she wants to be working like that? She’s probably got an unwell child and having to work from home. Nobody wants to do any job like that from home with children at same it’s nigh on impossible, but I suspect she’s attempting the possible to try limit the disruption of service overall. Doctors are human and have families and lives you know, they aren’t indentured slaves for their population
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I have no idea if her child is ill or not. They certainly sounded fine and there were multiple children. I suspect it was more than a coincidence that it was half term.
 
I wouldn’t know who it was and there are probably only a couple of staff including the now senior partner, but at that time the youngest partner who are still there. That building had belonged to the GPs in days of practice before the NHS was even formed, remember health systems existed pre NHS. They will have been paid a rent by the NHS over that period which maybe was the misunderstanding of estates person, but it will never have been an NHS asset
 
tres said:
Then move GPs. Plenty of others available.
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Sadly not. I don't know if it's a standard policy but I've had to leave the last 2 practices I was with when I moved as it crosses some sort of administrative line. So even though I actually live 3 miles from a practice I can't register there because I fall under a different region. The reason I was given is that should I ever require a home visit they don't do it outside of the administrative area.


Edit with being local heeeed might know, moving from SE northumberland to the longfram area?
 
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heeeed said:
I wouldn’t know who it was and there are probably only a couple of staff including the now senior partner, but at that time the youngest partner who are still there. That building had belonged to the GPs in days of practice before the NHS was even formed, remember health systems existed pre NHS. They will have been paid a rent by the NHS over that period which maybe was the misunderstanding of estates person, but it will never have been an NHS asset
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You probably do, he's one of the largest land and property owners in the country ;)
 
Dis86 said:
Sadly not. I don't know if it's a standard policy but I've had to leave the last 2 practices I was with when I moved as it crosses some sort of administrative line. So even though I actually live 3 miles from a practice I can't register there because I fall under a different region. The reason I was given is that should I ever require a home visit they don't do it outside of the administrative area.
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Practices can choose to allow out of area residents if they choose to, but they don’t have to and often decide not to especially if a large distance. If you are in North Northumberland then you probably don’t have a lot of options tbh, but strictly speaking you can be registered at any UK practice if you want and they’re willing to accept you. Could try somewhere nearer work?
 
heeeed said:
Practices can choose to allow out of area residents if they choose to, but they don’t have to and often decide not to especially if a large distance. If you are in North Northumberland then you probably don’t have a lot of options tbh, but strictly speaking you can be registered at any UK practice if you want and they’re willing to accept you. Could try somewhere nearer work?
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Pretty much the problem i have! I was actually registered with one of the practices near where I work exactly along your line of thinking but they were one of the ones that told me I'd have to move on when I changed address. Was absolutely ideal as it's literally a 10 minute walk from my office.

I believe there are a few practices in Morpeth but my understanding is they're part of a group with one in Cramlington and I think one in bedlington and you can't choose where you see someone, they basically send you to wherever has a slot. Or you get a phone appointment...so we're back to the start!
 
Werewolf said:
IIRC most GP's employ both a business manager and an office manager to do what they can.
Unfortunately that doesn't help with things like the paperwork only a doctor can legally do, or that we've got a chronic shortage of doctors due to things like the costs involved in getting trained to do it, the level of work they're expected to do (leading to high burn out rates early), and the fact that we've basically said "you're not welcome" to a large number of the GP's that came here from abroad.

One of the things I've noticed my practice is doing now, is that they've moved medicine reviews primarily over to the Pharmacist at least for certain types of long term medication, then booking you an appointment with a GP if there is anything that needs changing/looking at.
I'm guessing that's potentially saving them at least a couple of days of GP's time per week given the size of the practice.
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Varies depending on area who they employ. Most will have a practice manager as those are usually cheaper, business managers are generally ones with multiple or larger practices though where there's a justification.

I've seen my local GP move a lot of stuff to the practice nursing staff which I don't mind much but I would be worried if I started getting routinely pointed to the pharmacist for diagnosis rather than simply purely medication related stuff. Pharmacists tend to know drugs better, but not necessarily diagnosis.

The reliance on telephone/video calls is worrying me more. My experience has been serious as a result of the GP refusal to see me in person (cancer). I doubt I'll be the only one.
 
Phone and video have their place (although I would argue video offers almost nothing over phone in reality) , but it’s a heck of a lot easier seeing someone in person, and a damned sight more pleasant working that way. I never signed up to be a call centre operator and as soon as we felt it was safe to do so we went back to face to face for most stuff.
 
heeeed said:
Phone and video have their place (although I would argue video offers almost nothing over phone in reality) , but it’s a heck of a lot easier seeing someone in person, and a damned sight more pleasant working that way. I never signed up to be a call centre operator and as soon as we felt it was safe to do so we went back to face to face for most stuff.
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there was a story in the paper where a doctor told some woman she had liver failure and would die because her skin was yellow on the video call.

I tried to book a phone appointment on Friday just gone, was told the next available appointment was the Friday coming a whole 1 week later...
I just want to change my medication dosage back to what it was after asking to try a lower dose :/ which is about the only thing phone/video appointments are good for to talk about on going treatment
 
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Health is such an emotive area.

We are amazingly lucky with our GP surgery (North Wiltshire). All the Drs are ace and appointments are usually same day if urgent or withon 48hours if not.

We are still subject to NHS waiting lists, but the first point of contact is great.

I think a major issue is that we pay enough tax to resent NHS waits. If we paid more but got a "Scandanavia" level of service no-one would mind paying.

Decades of mis-management will take a long time to fix.
 
cheesefest said:
www.bbc.co.uk

Ambulance Service staff unable to drive new vehicles due to height

Documents reveal problems with Fiat ambulances used by the East of England Ambulance Service.
www.bbc.co.uk

58% of the ambulance drivers in the fleet can’t drive them as over 5ft 9. Plus drivers are complaining about back pain, restricted views, pedals too close together and trapping fingers
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What's funny is there is a family around here called the Marshalls, 5 sons and the smallest is 6ft 5ins, the Dad was 7ft 0.5ins and the only vehicle he could drive was an old ambulance.
 
The ambulance story just sounds so bizarre... Like how do you get all the way through the procurement process, apparently for a national standard ambulance, and not assess driver ergonomics!

The story mentions that other trusts have the panel van version, but that the cab design is the same. Don't see how this can be the case, because surely all the other ambulance services with the panel van designs would be having problems too?
 
GreatAuk said:
The ambulance story just sounds so bizarre... Like how do you get all the way through the procurement process, apparently for a national standard ambulance, and not assess driver ergonomics!

The story mentions that other trusts have the panel van version, but that the cab design is the same. Don't see how this can be the case, because surely all the other ambulance services with the panel van designs would be having problems too?
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It could just be a particularly militant group of drivers making a larger issue of it.
 
Dis86 said:
It could just be a particularly militant group of drivers making a larger issue of it.
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Maybe, but it kind of sounds like that's what the trust thought, hence they brought in this independent ergonomics expert. Who upheld a majority of the staff saying the vans weren't suitable.
 
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