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Wait till he has to pay for water

We all pay for water in our rates.

No you don't. This is a popular misconception.

[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.

What a ridiculous statement - axe to grind!  The title is GP's & Hospitals - What is going on - the answer is you cannot get a GP appointment and everyone is ending up at A&E and hence its all fucked!

I don't know what you expect surgeries to do though. Do you want them to see people to 12 o clock at night everyday? There are only physically so many people who can be dealt with in one working day.

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.

GPs still do house visits. Every day.

[Your beef is with your own surgery, claiming that the GP's are sitting about doing nowt. Well that's just bollox.]

So plebs paying their taxes no mates on GP reception pay for a taxi abandon their family for 6 hour wait in a&e for minor ailments because they can't afford 100 pound a pop.

So plebs paying their taxes no mates on GP reception pay for a taxi abandon their family for 6 hour wait in a&e for minor ailments because they can't afford 100 pound a pop.

So plebs paying their taxes no mates on GP reception pay for a taxi abandon their family for 6 hour wait in a&e for minor ailments because they can't afford 100 pound a pop.

Just keep phoning, the empty surgery.

Pretty sad response, an individual pitting his experience via knowing the local receptionist and having a few pounds over the masses, poor pensioners ringing will just give up if they can't get through but what do you care.

Again you're using your own experience (as am I) different surgeries than have different methods.

Your beef is with your own surgery, claiming that the GP's are sitting about doing nowt. Well that's just bollox.

You sound like another public server basher. You pay taxes, it doesn't mean you get automatic service.

If you want a better service we've got to pay more taxes to get it.

But you keep telling me how lucky I am for knowing a receptionist and how lucky my wife had £100 quid available to see a private doctor.

I have never once said that, I said I go once a week and at differing times and the surgery is empty, I have no clue what they are doing, telephone triage, video call, house calls, private work, I don't know, my beef as you put it is not with my surgery but how unfair it is in general, you don't care as you can text your receptionist and jump the queue or pay 100 quid when your mate is on holidays or whatever.  A 75 year old with COPD struggling and needing a course of steriods and an antibiotic has to ring up and if the poor crater can't get through they will give up, if they do get through and told there is no appointment and ring back, they'll give up, appointments should be able to be booked like pre-covid, oh yes Mrs Smith I could book you in tomorrow at 10am, it don't happen anymore, with that I bid you adieu.
 

Never ever were you able to get an appointment the next day at 10am. More like 3 or 4 weeks time! Do we really want to go back to that system?
Big part of the problem now is waiting lists for secondary care are through the roof. Those people are going to their GP day in day out for acute management in the meantime.

Brighton will score first. You will all get excited. City will win 4-1.
As a Liverpool fan I've learnt from the last 5 years that no matter how much you hope City screw up a league game this late on, it just won't happen. Better off to just accept it and look forward to next year. Both our teams gave it a good rattle this year.

[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!

If you explained that to the receptionist then they have got it wrong.

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 surgery will NOT see you unless you have an appointment (ring 79 times from 8.30 to be told all slots filled or get a call back from a Doctor who will do everything they can NOT to physically see you ) they will also NOT see you if you mention chest pain - they tell you to go to A&E - it's a complete joke.

Would you want to be stuck around your local GP surgery if you were having a heart attack? Or be in a hospital?

[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.

Jota injured. Again.

2 weeks.

Can someone explain 'ratio' to me - you see it in social media now.

If the ratio of comments to likes under your tweet is >1 you've probably made a bit of fool of yourself.

Once patton realised he'd effed up by faking an injury he sprinted at top speed over to the dug out so he could come back on     

Derry were not serious All Ireland contenders ffs. They are at a level below Kerry/Dublin, same as Armagh/Mayo/Galway/Tyrone/Donegal.

A few facts:
They beat Clare and Cork to get to AISFs the last 2 years.
Kerry played sh1te against them last year and still bate them.
They won the league final against Dublin reserves and believed the hype.

I also really think the new structure hurts teams in Derrys position. 4(?) weeks of no championship football before potentially playing Dublin or Kerry.

My prediction: they'll get through the group by beating the guff but will go out at the quarter final stage to a bigger team. Questions will remain over Harte but he will get to stay and we will see the same next year, only a bit worse.

True though they were being mooted with Dublin and Kerry as top 3. That league 'win' (penalty shootout) was very overstated and hyped. Harte got left behind in managing a long time ago. Hadn't beat Dublin, Kerry or Mayo in the championship 2009-2020. I don't think that would
have happened to Rory Gallagher today.

Yeah something like that wouldn't happen with a Rory Gallagher managed team

https://www.rte.ie/sport/gaa/2017/0722/892196-galway-v-donegal-report/#:~:text=Galway%20routed%20Donegal%20with%20a,once%2Dfeared%20defence%20to%20shreds.


https://derrygaa.ie/allianz-football-league-roinn-2-derry-0-12-galway-4-11-20-03-22/

That championship match was 2017 he'd brought them on a long way since that.. as for a league game irrelevant sure Tyrone got hammered in the league by Kerry in 2021 and took Sam up the road a few months later.
Mickey can't handle the big championship games... not in years...

Great man for the McKenna cups though! #champion #warratrophy