GPs Behind Closed Doors

I can understand that, Hobbycat, and there are times in the programme where you can see the need for a companion in the surgery, but at others it isn't clear at all why the extra person is there. It's up to them, obviously, but it just strikes me as odd. My husband often gives me a lift to hospital appointments, and sometimes walks with me to the surgery, but he always stays in the waiting room whilst I am being seen. There are always plenty of seats these days .

Our surgery is excellent and I have no problem joining the eight o’clock dash for an appointment because I know I’ll get one on the same day. However, I have a very wealthy friend who is at the same surgery, and as a private patient she’s always seen at a time of her convenience, possibly at her home. Money talks!

I have two terminal cancers and a Nephroscomy (Kidney drain), so not in the best of health.
Just developed an excruciatingly painful thoracic muscle gone into spasm. Managed to see a very helpful young doctor who prescribed Diazepam, on Thursday for two days. She told me if there was no improvement I could speak to her on Friday, tried to do this and was completely blocked by surgery. Only advice was to go to walk-in centre, A&E, phone 111 or 999!! All I needed was advice on continuing drugs or not, no point in going to a hospital. No point in them just confirming the diagnosis. So now at the weekend I have to wait until surgery opens on Monday.

doctor? what does a doctor look like/sound like,, here the receptionist diagnoses and then tells you , no appointments available this week. Full stop!

My husband was diagnosed with parkinsons disease( after 4 years fighting to get seen by a neurologist and being fobbed off by our GP with excuse after excuse etc) his diagnosis was 10 years ago and we have not seen a GP since!! Only ever see a nurse at the surgery if we can actually get an appointment...sad times...hence our local hospital A@E department have ambulances queuing all the time....

Bea65

I believe these series are a few years old as researched the Midlands one and Fulham series, they are not recent…

Yes they are old series being repeated. I've been a fan of this programme from the last few years. On the channel 5Star 7pm until 8pm.
The doctors are excellent and very informative.
Maybe for the cameras but I wish we had doctors like that.

Doodledog

I can understand that, Hobbycat, and there are times in the programme where you can see the need for a companion in the surgery, but at others it isn't clear at all why the extra person is there. It's up to them, obviously, but it just strikes me as odd. My husband often gives me a lift to hospital appointments, and sometimes walks with me to the surgery, but he always stays in the waiting room whilst I am being seen. There are always plenty of seats these days .

I ask my husband to attend if I think it is something which might be important. I think GP's often listen to a man in a way they don't a woman. My husband only chips in if he feels I am being dismissed. I spent years traipsing backwards and forwards to a Consultant with my daughter who suffered loads of UTI's from 4 months old. The first appointment my husband attended with me, we were suddenly offered a second opinion, proper tests and a full explanation of what they thought might be the problems. Up until this point, all requests for further tests were considered too invasive, a second opinion denied and a shrug of the shoulders with "little girls often have this" thrown over their shoulder as they walked away. I learned a very important lesson that day.

I can echo the experience of men and women getting different treatment by medics icanhandthemback. I attended A&E last August with a concern about symptoms which might have been a detached retina (it wasnt). The doctor's opening words were "You are too tanned". She then gave me a very long lecture about wearing sun cream and covering up. Eventually we got around to the eye issue. Husband was referred to a dermatologist and diagnosed with six basal cell carcinomas and sun cream/covering up was never mentioned. Apparently they had a lovely friendly chat about astronomy. I had told him he would get a lecture about unsafe behaviour in the sun, but nope, he is a man.

Accessing the town centre GP surgery is fine if you're prepared to use e-consult, upload photos and generally interact online.If you do see a doctor, it's never the same one as they nearly all work part-time.
Treatment happens, for which you're grateful, but you feel like a number not a person. All is procedure-driven with little humanity.

Doodledog

It's the same in our surgery, but the town has expanded a lot recently and there aren't enough parking spaces for all the residents of the estates further than walking distance from the centre, so I suspect a few are parkers rather than patients.

Back to GP's BCD - I am always surprised at how many people take friends and family into appointments with them. Obviously parents will accompany children, and elderly people might want a son or daughter as another pair of ears, but there are husbands and wives, siblings and all sorts of combinations of what appear to be capable people going in together.

How do you know that they are “capable”?
If people want to take someone with them, is it any of your business?

When my Mum got to her 80s and then 90s she preferred me to go in with her. She had bowel cancer twice and was always hoping she was not going to get more bad news so she wanted me with her just in case.

The patient could have learning difficulties and need someone with them. They could have hearing problems, they could have anxiety, they could have a phobia or white coat syndrome, they may need someone to help them undress. As the saying goes “not all disabilities are obvious.”

The doctor's at my practice are generally good but the reception staff are rude, abrupt & simply awful.
A poor, little old lady was horribly shouted at for going too close to the reception desk! I had to say something in her defence. Miraculously, I'm still on the patient list but I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not? 😶

Primrose53

Doodledog

It's the same in our surgery, but the town has expanded a lot recently and there aren't enough parking spaces for all the residents of the estates further than walking distance from the centre, so I suspect a few are parkers rather than patients.

Back to GP's BCD - I am always surprised at how many people take friends and family into appointments with them. Obviously parents will accompany children, and elderly people might want a son or daughter as another pair of ears, but there are husbands and wives, siblings and all sorts of combinations of what appear to be capable people going in together.

How do you know that they are “capable”?
If people want to take someone with them, is it any of your business?

When my Mum got to her 80s and then 90s she preferred me to go in with her. She had bowel cancer twice and was always hoping she was not going to get more bad news so she wanted me with her just in case.

The patient could have learning difficulties and need someone with them. They could have hearing problems, they could have anxiety, they could have a phobia or white coat syndrome, they may need someone to help them undress. As the saying goes “not all disabilities are obvious.”

Sigh. Of course it's none of my business, any more than any of the comments on this thread are the business of anyone other than the patient themselves, but, you know, we are discussing a TV programme on a discussion board, so we are all expressing personal opinions.

As I said, it is up to them what they do, but I (personally, in my opinion, thinking for myself) find it odd, which is why I said so. I didn't expect everyone to agree with me - I hoped someone might explain what I was missing - but there is no need to be so rude. And we do know what is wrong with them, as it is televised, so if they needed help that would be clear.

SunnySusie

I can echo the experience of men and women getting different treatment by medics icanhandthemback. I attended A&E last August with a concern about symptoms which might have been a detached retina (it wasnt). The doctor's opening words were "You are too tanned". She then gave me a very long lecture about wearing sun cream and covering up. Eventually we got around to the eye issue. Husband was referred to a dermatologist and diagnosed with six basal cell carcinomas and sun cream/covering up was never mentioned. Apparently they had a lovely friendly chat about astronomy. I had told him he would get a lecture about unsafe behaviour in the sun, but nope, he is a man.

It's disgusting, isn't it. The bias in the way females are addressed compared to men should be looked into!

I think it is being looked into, icanhandthemback. 'Women's troubles' or the 'gender pain gap' are often seen as 'emotional' , or something we need to put up with (all Eve's fault, obviously) whereas men suffering similar pain are taken more seriously.

I think there is a campaign to put that right, as well as the 'male as default' approach to medical research. I'm sure someone who knows more than I do about it will explain though.

Our surgery is now completely on the Anima app and you are not supposed to ring the surgery at all. I asked how people who are not computer literate or maybe do not have a computer at all would do - I know our oldest members here are fine and my own mother, who is in her mid-eighties does not have a problem with them but there are still a lot of elderly people who cannot use computers. The reply was that they would be shown how to use the app at the surgery. I have since seen this in action - a receptionist going through the procedure with a patient and the confused expression on the face of the poor patient is evident. They are then told that now they will know what to do next time, to which the bewildered reply is”yes, thank you, dear” and you know that even the smallest bit of what had been said will be forgotten a few seconds later. It is ageism in action and the group of people who generally need medical services the most are discriminated against. Even the app itself is not without its flaws as it asks you setpiece, generalist questions about generic conditions and you have to explain more in the box where they ask for more information but you are not sure whether or not your particular ailment is “allowed.” You are not even guaranteed a phone call and, as others have said, if you are actually lucky enough to be given an in-person appointment, not necessarily with a doctor, mind you, nine times out of ten, there is hardly anyone in the waiting room. The science of medical treatment has improved out of all recognition in our lifetimes but in terms of patient treatment, ie seeing the person behind the condition, we have gone backwards to an alarming degree. I have to say that if you can actually get to see a GP, the vast majority are as kind and caring as they have always been and practice nurses are generally super. It is the broken system that is the problem.

The receptionists at our surgery will fill in the online form for anyone unable to do it themselves, if they have no-one they want to help them. What they will not do is make an appointment for them, as that will jump the queue. The form is filled in and joins the triage pile with everyone else, and the patient will get a callback or an appointment when the GP has seen it.

I have seen people come into the surgery and demand an appointment, and get very huffy when the above is explained to them. The receptionist was respectful and clear about the process (patients can tell them in the waiting room, go home and ring in, or get someone else to do it for them) but that was not enough. They wanted to be given an appointment and discuss it with a doctor, skipping the triage that everyone else has to have.

If the system allowed that, I'm sure that many people would claim to be unable to use the online service.

Doodledog I will apologise for misunderstanding your post but I was not rude to you.

At the beginning you said “in our surgery”. I then read on but did not realise what BCD meant so I wrongly assumed you were still talking about your experience at your surgery.

Our GP is available usually day or two, and gets nurse to take blood while there if need be, the results take over a week though ..

Primrose53

Doodledog I will apologise for misunderstanding your post but I was not rude to you.

At the beginning you said “in our surgery”. I then read on but did not realise what BCD meant so I wrongly assumed you were still talking about your experience at your surgery.

Fair enough. I should probably have typed out Behind Closed Doors . It's not a usual abbreviation.

Doodledog

Primrose53

Doodledog I will apologise for misunderstanding your post but I was not rude to you.

At the beginning you said “in our surgery”. I then read on but did not realise what BCD meant so I wrongly assumed you were still talking about your experience at your surgery.

Fair enough. I should probably have typed out Behind Closed Doors . It's not a usual abbreviation.

Thank you. 👍

Doodledog

I think it is being looked into, icanhandthemback. 'Women's troubles' or the 'gender pain gap' are often seen as 'emotional' , or something we need to put up with (all Eve's fault, obviously) whereas men suffering similar pain are taken more seriously.

I think there is a campaign to put that right, as well as the 'male as default' approach to medical research. I'm sure someone who knows more than I do about it will explain though.

My sons and daughter both have the same congenital condition which affects their joints, digestion system and whole host of other things. Both my sons have seen the same Consultant who has never mentioned their weight and has done all the explorations needed to find a solution or at least explained the situation. One of my sons is very overweight. My daughter saw the same person. Before I went in, I told my daughter the consultant was really good and she would help her. The first thing the consultant said was that she wouldn't do the tests because my daughter was too overweight. She had a lower BMI than her brother. I wanted to fight it but my daughter clammed up, walked out and never went back. I long for the day when things are really equal for her.

Good grief, that's terrible. I hope someone reports her. I typed 'him', then checked, and was shocked to find the consultant is a woman. Disgraceful.

I also watched the programme and felt the same when hearing they were able to sort the chap out in the surgery

Doodledog

I can understand that, Hobbycat, and there are times in the programme where you can see the need for a companion in the surgery, but at others it isn't clear at all why the extra person is there. It's up to them, obviously, but it just strikes me as odd. My husband often gives me a lift to hospital appointments, and sometimes walks with me to the surgery, but he always stays in the waiting room whilst I am being seen. There are always plenty of seats these days .

It's up to patients to explain their need of a companion/supporter or keep that private. Potential reasons patients take back up include.

deafness
acute health anxiety
emotional or mental health issues
abuse history requiring chaperone
English not their first language

I have been the "accompanying person" for all the above (different patients) . I've witness the most patient, kind, helpful Drs explain everything slowly, simply, clearly, invite questions, sum up perfectly; and as soon as we left, the patient had blanked /forgotten/ reversed everything.

Even highly educated competent people can do this under stress. It's commoner than you may think.

HowVeryDareYou2
I can assure you there are staff that will fetch drink and sandwiches for patients as I have been offered many times, also ambulance staff have got me a sandwich, biscuits and a drink whilst queueing outside a hospital.