Messages

[phone queue system]

Firstly it would be valuable to put a phone queue system in place to say you have reached such and such surgery you are now 15 in the queue, it would help a lot of folk especially older folk and give you some semblance of getting somewhere instead of redialling 100 times only to be told there is no appointment.  I would save some appointments each morning for very vulnerable people who ring in after the 8.30 deadline so they can be seen the next morning, it would be great if a doctor rang back instead of a receptionist to say go to A&E instead they are so protected it's impossible to get speaking to them.

Alot of surgeries have this already, but it depends on the number of phone lines coming in to the building. Digital lines are able to cover as many as you want pretty much and will be the norm in 5 years or so.

It also doesn't improve your chances of getting an appointment. There will still be the same amount of people dealt with in a day.

at my doctors if you dont get an appointment in the morning you can ring back and get it recorded that you tried. If this happens 3 days in a row you get a call from the doctor on day 4. I think its a fair system

Same with mine

My friends aunt was up from the South, needed to see a doctor, paid £75 quid to see one in a private clinic in Armagh ran by an ex Tyrones missus, the doctor she saw is the doctor I would see if I ever got an appointment!

That Doctor is in all likelihood taking those shifts because his or her practice can not give them any more shifts. Not the fault of the GP but the system.

I dont think so. Went part time (or just left) NHS to go into the private sector.

GP Practices have a limited number of sessions, even if they decided to go part time it would not impact on the number of appointments available at your practice. Most Doctors who leave HSC GP work do so because they can no longer put up with the insane work load.

Insane workload? 9-6 with a few hrs off for paperwork and calls in my local surgery. As you have said the GPs have limited availability which hasn't changed despite the massive uptick in need so how is their workload insane? The biggest complaint the seem to have is that they were being taxed too highly on their pension fund.

It isn't 9-6 though is it. Its 8-6, with a few hours of remote access to do coding, redact notes and to process hospital letters in the evening after the children are in bed. If the life of a GP is so easy, why can they not get anyone to do it? That is the real question.
Also don't understand why time to process letters from secondary care and to do calls is considered "time off" in your eyes.

You are not going to win with Tones, he is either deliberately winding or has some sort of axe to grind.

[Sudden onset chest pain needs urgent assessment to rule out cardiac cause.]

I had similar issue about a year later and made up symptoms to see a GP as if I had of mentioned chest pain they wouldn't have seen me, how ridiculous is that.

Not really. They are following national guidelines. Sudden onset chest pain needs urgent assessment to rule out cardiac cause. Only thing a GP surgery can do is an ECG which will result in you going to hospital anyway for bloods to confirm a MI or whatever it may be. Can't do those in a GP surgery, so going there is a waste of everyone's time including yours (which you may not have.)

My issue included chest pain which was present for over 6 weeks, this I explained to the receptionist who rang me  back and said go to A&E, I didn't get to speak to a doctor and spent the whole day in A&E apologising to various medical professionals for taking up their time as they were all flat to the mat - if only I had her mobile number!

Are you for real, MR @ has already told you why A&E is the best place. My wife had chest pain recently and we went straight to A&E, took 36 hours, but that's another story.

No university course is free now, are you a doctor after a medical course or do you need advice, training and guidance via a paid private sector company or is that provided by say the NHS in the occupied 6?

Insurance, training and exams to be a GP are funded in the UK by the NHS, in NI the Dr pays for it themselves. The Final GP exam alone costs £2000 which the Dr pays.

Yeah f**k you jack I am OK.

You're putting the blame at the GPs door for taking on a legal practice activity? What moral obligation do they have to get f**ked by a broken system?

Successive Prime Ministers, Health Ministers drove the place into the ground. Some moral obligation to be the last violinist on the Titanic.

Did they pay privately to be trained?

Is the course to be a doctor free?

Absolutely not, it costs about £15K pa to do medicine with only a small student loan.

My friends aunt was up from the South, needed to see a doctor, paid £75 quid to see one in a private clinic in Armagh ran by an ex Tyrones missus, the doctor she saw is the doctor I would see if I ever got an appointment!

That Doctor is in all likelihood taking those shifts because his or her practice can not give them any more shifts. Not the fault of the GP but the system.

I dont think so. Went part time (or just left) NHS to go into the private sector.

Couple of health centres in Derry are starting to offer the private consultations at £75 a pop. These appointments will only be outside the core hours, ie after 6pm as far as I know.

* huge amount of last minute cancellations / no shows
* staff members getting serious abuse. A woman working in one of the larger health centres in the town told me 4 admin staff left within a week of each other. They didn't have other jobs to go to at the time, just couldn't listen to any more dung
* dozens of prescriptions like 'brufen and paracetamol which cost a quid in the supermarket costing £40+ when got through a health centre
* repeat patients, and I'm talking of a lot of folk calling each and every day with different ailments
* queues for sick lines
* general levels of entitlement and abuse of the system

The above and many more issues aren't helping things

100%

If you can afford it you sound like the I'm OK f**k you, more can't afford than can, and as I alluded before I have yet to see anyone in a waiting room whilst collecting prescriptions, maybe we all need a mate on reception.

That is because appointments are now strictly controlled and walkins are no longer allowed. GP's have no space  for further appointments.

My friends aunt was up from the South, needed to see a doctor, paid £75 quid to see one in a private clinic in Armagh ran by an ex Tyrones missus, the doctor she saw is the doctor I would see if I ever got an appointment!

That Doctor is in all likelihood taking those shifts because his or her practice can not give them any more shifts. Not the fault of the GP but the system.

I dont think so. Went part time (or just left) NHS to go into the private sector.

GP Practices have a limited number of sessions, even if they decided to go part time it would not impact on the number of appointments available at your practice. Most Doctors who leave HSC GP work do so because they can no longer put up with the insane work load.

Insane workload? 9-6 with a few hrs off for paperwork and calls in my local surgery. As you have said the GPs have limited availability which hasn't changed despite the massive uptick in need so how is their workload insane? The biggest complaint the seem to have is that they were being taxed too highly on their pension fund.

The pension situation applies to a small number of older GP's. GP's have 8 minutes for a consultation, 2 minutes to write up notes, need to fit in call backs to patients, do house calls, triage patients and run what is effectively a stand alone business, they do not even have time for lunch and have been funding cost increases out of their own pockets, after 10 years of training. That is why we cannot attract or retain GP's. Your assessment is based on a lack of understanding of how the system functions or doesn't in this case.

Yeah f**k you jack I am OK.

This is an outstanding summation based on your total ignorance of the system and how it works.

My friends aunt was up from the South, needed to see a doctor, paid £75 quid to see one in a private clinic in Armagh ran by an ex Tyrones missus, the doctor she saw is the doctor I would see if I ever got an appointment!

That Doctor is in all likelihood taking those shifts because his or her practice can not give them any more shifts. Not the fault of the GP but the system.

I dont think so. Went part time (or just left) NHS to go into the private sector.
[/quote
GP Practices have a limited number of sessions, even if they decided to go part time it would not impact on the number of appointments available at your practice. Most Doctors who leave HSC GP work do so because they can no longer put up with the insane work load.

My friends aunt was up from the South, needed to see a doctor, paid £75 quid to see one in a private clinic in Armagh ran by an ex Tyrones missus, the doctor she saw is the doctor I would see if I ever got an appointment!

That Doctor is in all likelihood taking those shifts because his or her practice can not give them any more shifts. Not the fault of the GP but the system.

[Before COVID you could ring the GP surgery and get an appointment the same day, Why are GP's not back to seeing patients, is everything just been sent to the A&E departments. What are they actually doing?]

The school rang my wife yesterday about our 12 yr old son who was saying he didnt feel well and said his chest was sore. Teacher said his heart rate was pretty fast. He hadn't been running about or anything. Long story short he was lifted from school and the wife thought she would call into the GP Surgery in our small town. She said the car park to the surgery was empty (this was around 2pm) and when she went to the reception she could see they waiting room was empty and they told her that there were no free appointments available and to ring this number.

She rang the number and explained what was going on and was told to be at Craigavon for 6pm.
Went up and got a ECG done which showed nothing out of the ordinary and said that it might be best to get a chest xray and sent her over to the A&E department.
My wife said it was crazy, the place was packed with only standing room and she just came home as she would probably be still waiting.

Before COVID you could ring the GP surgery and get an appointment the same day, Why are GP's not back to seeing patients, is everything just been sent to the A&E departments. What are they actually doing?

We are not ones who run every time to the doctors if one of us has have a sniffle and the last time I was we were at a hospital was when our last was born which was 8 years ago.

Surly this can go on like this as staff at the hospitals couldnt work under them conditions.

Sorry for the long post.
 

Few points on this.
No you generally could not see a GP the same day before COVID. Routine appointments were handed out a month in advance. Slots would be reserved for emergency stuff on the day but for the most part, you had to wait a few weeks at least.

In fact, more people are seen "on the day" than ever before. The move to a day to day triage service has ensured that calls can be triaged and redirected to the appropriate person (GP, pharmacist, a&e, etc).
There are more consultations per day now than before COVID, and that's with less staff. To the point where safety concerns have very raised by the BMA.

There are a few reasons why surgeries are ridiculously busy at the minute. A shortage of doctors like I said, but as well as that the amount of people on waiting lists for secondary care is growing, leaving these people essentially going to their GP to treat symptoms whilst they wait for expert assessment. An aging population and increased rates of obesity, T2DM etc also contribute.

This is correct, ad to that the amount of money GP practices receive to provide services has not increased in a long time meaning that all staff wage increases and the normal cost of living increases have been taken out of the GP's pocket so it is becoming harder to retain GP's.

Another example of Tyrone being refereed differently again. How can one be a yellow card and the other black?

Did you see the whole incident or just what we seen on the telly?

To be fair the BBC could not find why there was 1 black and 1 yellow appeared bizzarre, a big call that impacted on the game. Do you know why?

I only seen what the telly showed, as did most? My thinking is the the Tyrone man pulled him to the ground and what we seen was the grabbing each about on TV

Is that a black card?

That Tyrone team have better fire power than most Ulster team, it'll be an interesting game. I hate to say it but the sons of God are a joy to watch.

Another example of Tyrone being refereed differently again. How can one be a yellow card and the other black?

Did you see the whole incident or just what we seen on the telly?

To be fair the BBC could not find why there was 1 black and 1 yellow appeared bizzarre, a big call that impacted on the game. Do you know why?