Are GPs as busy as they keep telling us they are?

When my grandson was two years old, towards the end of lockdown, he had repeated high temperatures, white spots on his tonsils and was very unhappy. My son was told to take him to the doctors by 111, which he did after making an appointment. He was outside the doctor's door when his phone rang. It was the doctor asking him where he was with 'this child'. My son told him he was outside his door which then opened with a totally masked up GP (fair enough there was a pandemic) who said 'put him on the bed, I don't want to get too close as I don't want to catch anything.!
My grandson had severe tonsilitis, his sixth bout, and was sent away with more antibiotics. How he diagnosed from a distance I'll never know. My son kept quite calm but exited with a rude remark.
Apparently, he'd had quite a few rude remarks and complaints and left the practice a year later.

Catterygirl

Aged about 45 I caught chicken pox from my husband who had shingles. I also got the flu for the first time ever so was quite ill. When I requested a home visit all I can remember was someone laughing. Nobody came.

I was really poorly with chickenpox when I was eight and off school for about a month. I can remember the doctor coming to the house to visit me and looking at my hand to check that it was chickenpox rather than smallpox. This was in 1973.
Fast forward to this summer and my lifelong very bad hay-fever, which has been well controlled for several years with strong prescription only antihistamine tablets, flared up quite badly again. I needed to know whether I could double my dose of antihistamines and use a mild steroid cream on my face, as my eczema was also causing me problems (I have much stronger cream for other areas of my body if I need it). I could hardly keep awake because of the hay-fever. I asked a pharmacist first, but was told I needed to speak to a gp as my medication was on prescription. I rang the surgery and was quite happy with the telephone appointment l was given as it hardly warranted being seen. However, I was not very happy about the fact that the first appointment they could give me was over a week later. When I finally spoke to the gp, she was lovely and very helpful, but the entire appointment lasted less than two minutes. Surely, there could be some other way for simple enquiries like mine; perhaps pharmacists could be given permission to use their professional discretion in cases like mine. I realise that it was hardly a medical emergency, but I was left in considerable discomfort nonetheless

CariadAgain

missdeke

emmasnan

Both the large waiting rooms in my surgery are almost empty and the few people in there are usually waiting to see a nurse.

I feel its such a waste to be heating and running such a large practice to have it almost empty. They appear to be doing flu jabs but not Covid.

The nurse at our mid sized practice said they were unable to do covid jabs because of the difficulty of storage, especially as different covid jabs are developed for different ages etc.

When you asked what the reason was for them giving different Covid jabs for different ages - what did they say that reason was and what agegroups they split people into?

Certain ages are unsuitable for some types of jabs, certain people have had bad reactions to some makes, it depends how the vaccine is produced apparently.

Our surgery recently adopted a new triage system which is put on the NHS app. The idea is that the receptionists no longer have the responsibility of deciding who will be seeing a doctor. They advertised it for ages sending us texts and emails. They offered to help patients set up the app and showed them how to use it. These help sessions were numerous. The system started at the beginning of October. So far it is easy to use and replies have been prompt. It’s run by an American business called Arcxx (if I’ve got that right). You get a phone call from a doctor but you can be seen if it necessary. Seen one doctor several times last year when I had an ongoing problem.

Doing what? Not all surgeries are the same but ours have tel calls 8.30am to 10am which Is almost impossible to get through to. The odd time I have been in the surgery it is completely empty. The last time (about 4 years ago) i had a face to face appointment i was alloted 5 mins and the dr kept looking at her watch- even though id booked a double appointment. I'm genuinely curious as to how they spend their time. A previous post mentioned home visits- that's a new one for me!. Last home visit I heard of was many many years ago and. Maybe it varies from area to area?

Our busy surgery used to be buzzing with patients .
It was never that great , but there was a big pile of old magazines to read and someone to talk to .
Then the magazines disappeared due to covid .
Kids had no toys .
Less and less people sat in the waiting room .
There was just a screen to look at and lot of scary notices about VD and abuse .
Talking to the receptionists became difficult.
Appointments literally impossible .
Then mistakes over prescriptions and blood forms .
The waiting room has been redecorated and is pristine and empty . We have seven Doctors .
You can tell how many at in the surgery from the number of expensive cars parked on the forecourt .

My very elderly neighbour was housebound for four years, and several times spent hours and hours on the phone trying to get a GP to see her at home with no luck. The first couple of times she was told to call 111 who sent an ambulance, then she spent hours in A&E, overnight in an admissions ward which was bedlam and then sent home with antibiotics for a UTI. When she moved into the local care home a GP visited every week and most weeks she not only got an appointment, she would have 'a lovely long chat' with the doctor. She was at huge risk alone at home and very ill, whilst in the care home they had a resident nurse and lots of staff.

Jaxjacky

CariadAgain

Jaxjacky

Ours spend that time on home visits, triaging econsults, discussing caseloads and making phone consultations. They open for covid and flu jabs last week, queues were snaked outside. Our last few visits, four this year between us, the waiting room was busy reflected by the full car park.
We are very happy with our surgery.

Re the "open for....jabs" = what type of staff were doing these? Was it nurses? doctors? some other grade?

A mixture of the doctors and nurse practitioners, no other appointments that day, why?

I was checking to see if doctors are spending some of their appointment time available on giving jabs instead of consultations. Confirmed they are then....

I had a blood test 10 days ago. I was becoming increasingly anxious about the results as I'd had no call, so I rang the surgery this afternoon. I was told that they received the results 7 days ago, but that GPs have 10 days to convey the results to the patient. If the results were clear the Dr wouldn't be calling anyway. Had there been an issue I would have had a call as soon as the surgery received the report. If I requested an appointment there were none until November.

Is it me? I suppose I can take comfort in the fact that it seems that no news is good news.

I am not as concerned about how hard GPs are working because in some areas they seem to be working very hard and patients have a good level of service. My question is why other areas have terrible service and patients give up trying to even see a GP, either going to the chemist or the nearest A&E, or just sitting on what could be a potentially fatal illness because they just can't get seen?
Some on here are questionning those complaining as if we don't know how to access a GP, mentioning apps, my surgery has Doctor IQ but the app is nearly always down with technical problems, and we can't book appointments on it anymore, we have to ring at 8 in the morning. The only thing we can do is order repeat prescriptions and sometimes these don't get through and we have to ring the GP surgery anyway.
If there is good practice in some parts of the country why can't this be repeated elsewhere? Surely the government should aim at rolling out good practice for all patients, and deprivatising GP surgeries, getting rid of managers, and putting doctors and other medical staff in charge.

Ginny42

I had a blood test 10 days ago. I was becoming increasingly anxious about the results as I'd had no call, so I rang the surgery this afternoon. I was told that they received the results 7 days ago, but that GPs have 10 days to convey the results to the patient. If the results were clear the Dr wouldn't be calling anyway. Had there been an issue I would have had a call as soon as the surgery received the report. If I requested an appointment there were none until November.

Is it me? I suppose I can take comfort in the fact that it seems that no news is good news.

I always check my blood test results on the patient app. Sometimes they're available the same day.

Babs03 My GP practice is on its third online booking system and I think they've finally found a system which works - after two years! I completed an e-consult a couple of weeks ago, received a text with a face-to-face appointment about half an hour later and was referred to secondary care straight away. DrIQ has terrible reviews. I don't understand why they can't all decide to use the best system.

icanhandthemback

I went for my 'flu jab yesterday at the surgery and whilst I was there I asked about the Covid jab. Our surgery only offers the former, you have to go to a pharmacy for the latter. I said I wish I'd known that because I would have booked both through the pharmacy. The nurse said the surgery don't want patients to do that otherwise they will end up not doing the 'flu jab either. I pointed out that I wanted a service that was easy for me rather than one that suited them. She was really surprised. I pointed out that the pharmacy was becoming a one stop shop for so many things that it made sense for me to get my vacs in the same place.
I also said that I found it incredible that so many services had been outsourced but I still couldn't phone the surgery easily and had to wait a long time for an appointment. The surgery, as usual, was completely empty.

I rang my surgery in September as I knew covid and flu were being rolled out early October to ask if they were doing them. They said yes to flu no to covid but had no dates. As I am going abroad for a few days this week wanted to get the covid so booked through 119 (won't go through all that palaver) anyway got it last Thursday. My friend at same surgery had a text to say she could book her flu jab (then another to say covid too!!). I rang back to say I felt penalised that I didn't have a mobile phone as she had got text around the time I rang first time. They still wouldn't let me book and said I would hear from them sometime - don't know if it will be letter or email. In the past they have said come here as we have bought enough for those who can have it. Sorry but stuff that, I'm on their COPD list still not heard so just booked via 119 to have flu jab when I get back .
I dread being ill as our surgery has just gone on this new system where you have to fill an online form in and be triaged to see if they will see you. Yes I have a PC but live on my own. If I am really ill how am I supposed to get up, turn my computer on, fill in a damn form and hope they get back to me. I think A & E will start to get inundated again if it's a bad winter for bugs as they keep saying it will be and I fear that along with the disgusting loss of winter fuel payments a lot of older people will end up dying this Winter..

Babs03

I am not as concerned about how hard GPs are working because in some areas they seem to be working very hard and patients have a good level of service. My question is why other areas have terrible service and patients give up trying to even see a GP, either going to the chemist or the nearest A&E, or just sitting on what could be a potentially fatal illness because they just can't get seen?
Some on here are questionning those complaining as if we don't know how to access a GP, mentioning apps, my surgery has Doctor IQ but the app is nearly always down with technical problems, and we can't book appointments on it anymore, we have to ring at 8 in the morning. The only thing we can do is order repeat prescriptions and sometimes these don't get through and we have to ring the GP surgery anyway.
If there is good practice in some parts of the country why can't this be repeated elsewhere? Surely the government should aim at rolling out good practice for all patients, and deprivatising GP surgeries, getting rid of managers, and putting doctors and other medical staff in charge.

The main reason must be that there are different numbers of GPs in GP practices for the patient population they serve, most are private businesses, and if they are unable to attract enough doctors to work for them the service won’t be as good to patients. That’s why most struggling practices are in poorer areas, inner cities etc. , the bottom line is that there just aren’t enough GPs.

Our online appointment booking service was withdrawn at the beginning of COVID and has never returned, it's only in the last few weeks that the opportunity to book a call back from a GP has been put in place with a wait of around 3 weeks from request to the call back. Prior to this if you couldn't get through at 8.30 there was no healthcare available. My daughter has been feeling exhausted for months, she does 12 hour shifts in a care home and has struggled on without any help because she starts at 8am and can't take calls during her shifts and could never get through on her days off, in desperation she wrote a letter to her GP explaining her health problems which was completely ignored, she now finally has a call back at the end of this month. I think COVID was used by GPs as an excuse to cut patient access, the reason I say this is that our old practice building had large waiting rooms that held 30-40 patients the new primary care centre building has tiny waiting areas holding 8 max, this building was planned years before COVID arrived.

the bottom line is that there just aren’t enough GPs

And there we have it.

On this thread we have many complaints about GPs. They work part time, they’re on the golf course, can only see a nurse, waiting rooms are empty, what are they doing all day, and so on.

The bottom line is that there aren’t enough GPs. If there aren’t enough, then everyone will get a worse service.

And yes, they do work hard, despite the obvious beliefs on here that they’re all rich and lazy. I know this because my daughter is a GP. If you actually know a GP well (not just one who lives up the road) then you would know they work hard, especially with the incessant directives that arrive all the time from government.

glammagran pre pandemic we could make some GP appointments online but that service was withdrawn in 2020 and has never been restored. The only way to make an appointment is to telephone the practice.

My friend age 83 had fluid in the lung/chest and had a drain put in. Nurse was calling at home to check the drain a week later.
My friend told the nurse it felt uncomfortable.
Nurse agreed it was a bit red and phoned the GP who said it would be fine.
The following week my friend was very uncomfortable and the nurse again rang the GP who said not to worry.
The third week the nurse looked at it and said friend would have to see either GP or hospital.
Friend had a hospital appointment the next day and when she attended that appt the consultant said she was very ill, actually said dangerously ill. She was admitted and was in hospital for ten days.

Some GP practices have disabled the Appointment section on the NHS app so it's not easy to cancel or make an appointment.

62Granny

I called in our surgery this morning it was 9.20 am on a Tuesday , there was 1 person in the waiting area, this is a busy practice with usually 2/3 doctors and a few nurses there at any one time. It is flu jab season, which seems to have been outsourced to the local pharmacies, I just wonder what they are all doing? I worked in a GP surgery for 8 years the only time it was quiet like that would sometimes be a Saturday morning emergency surgery. ( when doctors worked a Saturday and done home visits too.

I thought the same 62granny

I went to the doctors, put a facemask on as I thought it will be full of germs with the busy waiting room. One person sitting waiting! Went again for a repeat prescription; no one there!

Yes most GPs work very hard, in a difficult job. Everything changed with the pandemic, compounded by the country not training enough GP’s despite it being clear a crisis was coming.

We have all had to adjust to phone triage and phone consultations as a result. I’m fortunate our practice was rated Outstanding at its last inspection. A real bonus is helpful, positive responses from the receptionists. We have a group of GPs and nurses who have been with the practice for years.

I find the complaints on this thread about GP’s working part time “especially women” interesting. Why shouldn’t people work part time? Especially women, who still seem responsible/expected to do the bulk of child care, the emotional and practical care of their children and elderly parents.

growstuff

Babs03 My GP practice is on its third online booking system and I think they've finally found a system which works - after two years! I completed an e-consult a couple of weeks ago, received a text with a face-to-face appointment about half an hour later and was referred to secondary care straight away. DrIQ has terrible reviews. I don't understand why they can't all decide to use the best system.

Just what I was saying earlier in the thread, growstuff. Our surgery has tried out several systems too. At the moment we have PATCHS (for the second time) and I hope it stays as it actually seems to work now. But whatever, surely it would be better if the best system was decided upon nationally and we were all shown via various means how to use it, instead of this piecemeal approach. Perhaps then we’d all know what we were doing and the phone lines would be available for those who aren’t able to use the online system, for whatever reason. So much time and money must be wasted on trialling all these different versions of what is essentially the same service. The suppliers must be laughing all the way to the bank.

I used to feel the same when I worked in a school, and we wasted so much time devising, updating and authorising around 30 standard policies a year that had to be published on our websites. Most of them could have been standardised centrally.

@maddyfour, no one is complaining about individual doctors, unless they have had a bad experience with one. The complaint about part-time doctors is justified, though, as is the concern about being able to get any type of appointment at a reasonable timescale because both telephone and computer systems are becoming more and more complicated. The move to online appointment booking is particularly concerning as not everyone is computer literate and even those of us who are can find the websites very complicated and confusing. Most of us try to avoid visiting a doctor unless it is absolutely necessary and worry about "bothering the doctor." However, the lack of continuation of care - rarely seeing the same doctor twice - and the long wait for, sometimes, even urgent appointments (and we, as patients, cannot always know how serious our ailments are), along with our ageing population is going to lead to more tragedies.

maddyfour

On the NHS app you can cancel an appointment right up to moments before the time. There is no need to be hanging on the phone for over an hour just to cancel an appointment.

Not on ours you can’t. The Practice have disabled it. I contacted my friend at another Practice and hers is also disabled.

Hence, we are back to being number 17 in a phone queue.

@Iam64, you are fortunate indeed to belong to an outstanding health care provider. However, most of us do not. The medical professionals are generally very good, but the problem most people have is actually seeing someone in the first place.