GP's & Hospitals - What is going on

[Tones]

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.

Yes you could, you could also get a house visit pre covid for an eldery person or someone very sick, that would be in the realms of fantasy now. As for people going to their GP day in day out - who are these folk, you can't get to see a GP.

[RedHand88]

GPs still do house visits. Every day.

[Milltown Row2]

MPs and MLA's aren't answering the phone in the here and now, what world do we live in where someone's gym mate has priority over someone else, or where a doctor won't see you in their own surgery but will in another if you pony up 75 quid.

If you need £75 I can pony that up for you, just to shut you up for starters 

Once Ireland is united we'll be fine, no waiting about 

[Tones]

Your arrogance is astounding.

[Applesisapples]

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.

[Applesisapples]

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.

[Applesisapples]

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.

[Applesisapples]

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%

[Applesisapples]

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.

[Applesisapples]

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.

[general_lee]

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.

Insane workload?

You try dealing with spoofers every day of your working life telling you lies about how sick they are (so they can get their sickline for another month). 

Even the ones that actually are sick continue to eat nothing but shite, smoke 40 bines a day, drink every night of the week and the most exercise they do is getting up to go the fridge.

Try sitting in a room with an alcoholic who can't help themselves, drug addicts, gambling addicts, vulnerable people self-harming having suicidal thoughts, domestic abuse victims. 

Few hours off for paperwork is an understatement, try a few hours at home every night and bringing it home most weekends. Add in patient relationships, GPs taking time to visit wakes, attending funerals etc.

Is it any wonder so many of them are going private along with consultants and nurses. The system is completely fucked from top to bottom and I wouldn't blame anyone working in healthcare cos I would do the exact same.

[Tones]

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.

Certainly no space 12 to 5 every wednesday in my surgery where that is staff training.

[Applesisapples]

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.

[Tones]

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.

Are you for real one symptom was chest pain - no way was I having a heart attack it was there for 6 weeks but NO doctor would speak to me, pass the buck no wonder your wife was in A&E for 36 hours everyone is being sent there as they cant see a GP!

[RedHand88]

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.