NPR

Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:37 pm Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

No idea how accurate it is but I read a quote recently on the lines of "All the GPs are on the golf course and all their patients are in A&E".

GogLais wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:53 pm

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:37 pm Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

No idea how accurate it is but I read a quote recently on the lines of "All the GPs are on the golf course and all their patients are in A&E".

Our local Surgery only accepts emails and then they diagnose your illness. Maybe together with a follow up phone call. It’s fucking criminal.

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:37 pm Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

My GP has been available since early July to see face to face. My mother's GP even earlier... Is it only certain areas?

My GP does phone calls first then an in person appointment if necessary. I’m actually quite comfortable with speaking to the doctor on the phone or maybe a zoom first, I think it might be more efficient. But I appreciate for some it won’t be right.

Grandpa wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:56 pm

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:37 pm Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

My GP has been available since early July to see face to face. My mother's GP even earlier... Is it only certain areas?

It’s certainly an issue in Berkshire. And Bucks. Wiltshire too.

Are you in Scotland? Maybe your docs are bored of golf.

Biffer wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:57 pm My GP does phone calls first then an in person appointment if necessary. I’m actually quite comfortable with speaking to the doctor on the phone or maybe a zoom first, I think it might be more efficient. But I appreciate for some it won’t be right.

Here you have to get through two layers of surgery staff before a doctor will even think about calling you. Usually 2-3 days later if at all.

“Doctor is busy. Have you tried 111?”

Cnuts

I got sent to a patient who was feeling a little under the weather, the GP deemed it too risky for her to attend as the patients wife tested positive on lateral flow. So the GP phoned 999.

This isn't an isolated incident.

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:58 pm

Grandpa wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:56 pm

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:37 pm Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

My GP has been available since early July to see face to face. My mother's GP even earlier... Is it only certain areas?

It’s certainly an issue in Berkshire. And Bucks. Wiltshire too.

Are you in Scotland? Maybe your docs are bored of golf.

I wouldn’t have thought so, our golf courses are far superior up here.

Seeing my doc at 2pm.

However, I had a problem a couple of weeks ago - I had been struggling with RSV and strained something in my chest with all the coughing. The pain was quite bad and gave me real concerns and I just couldn't get in. Pissed me right off.

Biffer wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:08 pm

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:58 pm

Grandpa wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:56 pm

My GP has been available since early July to see face to face. My mother's GP even earlier... Is it only certain areas?

It’s certainly an issue in Berkshire. And Bucks. Wiltshire too.

Are you in Scotland? Maybe your docs are bored of golf.

I wouldn’t have thought so, our golf courses are far superior up here.

Good point

Biffer wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:57 pm My GP does phone calls first then an in person appointment if necessary. I’m actually quite comfortable with speaking to the doctor on the phone or maybe a zoom first, I think it might be more efficient. But I appreciate for some it won’t be right.

It’s impossible to get an appointment with my GP, even to speak with them on the phone. It takes upwards of an hour to get through to the surgery on the phone, only to be told that there are no appointments left and to try again tomorrow or ring NHS direct if it’s urgent. Rinse and repeat each day.

In Sunny Aberdeen , my Wife's GP refused a repeat prescription for the pill until the GP had checked her Blood Pressure and performed a smear test at the GP Surgery ( I think my wife would have preferred if her GP was not seeing patients in person )

To round the day up we got our 12 year old Daughter her Covid jab.

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:58 pm

Grandpa wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:56 pm

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:37 pm Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

My GP has been available since early July to see face to face. My mother's GP even earlier... Is it only certain areas?

It’s certainly an issue in Berkshire. And Bucks. Wiltshire too.

Are you in Scotland? Maybe your docs are bored of golf.

Yorkshire. My mum's GP is good too.. comes to the house to see her whenever I ask. Often stays an hour. Lovely bloke. I used to work in Pharmaceuticals many years ago, so I know most doctors are selfish tw*ts unlike him. Most are rubbish at golf too.

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:37 pm Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

have you got links to this?

or are you just echoing thebile spouted by the daily mail?

my gp has pretty much saved my life over the last 3 months in person and of the 6 GPs I know, all of them have been physically present in surgery for quite a while

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:58 pm

Grandpa wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:56 pm

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:37 pm Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

My GP has been available since early July to see face to face. My mother's GP even earlier... Is it only certain areas?

It’s certainly an issue in Berkshire. And Bucks. Wiltshire too.

Are you in Scotland? Maybe your docs are bored of golf.

ah, areas filled with lazy, overpaid pricks

HappyBimbot in the house I see.

I don’t live in London and it’s clearly a problem for some people in other areas. So stop being a contrarian tit.

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:56 pm HappyBimbot in the house I see.

I don’t live in London and it’s clearly a problem for some people in other areas. So stop being a contrarian tit.

seriously, fuck you for that first line. i thought you were better than that

i'm not being contrarian, i asked for links on your rather bombastic OP. the only place i've seen this stuff was in the mail.

and i was not kidding re my gp (which, as i live in london has far more patients to dr than outside). they've been fucking awesome. or my friends who are gps

Not a problem for me in my part of Wiltshire - saw my GP face to face back in March, admittedly had to go through telephone triage to do so but they have been seeing patients throughout.

Happyhooker wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 11:02 pm

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 10:56 pm HappyBimbot in the house I see.

I don’t live in London and it’s clearly a problem for some people in other areas. So stop being a contrarian tit.

seriously, fuck you for that first line. i thought you were better than that

i'm not being contrarian, i asked for links on your rather bombastic OP. the only place i've seen this stuff was in the mail.

and i was not kidding re my gp (which, as i live in london has far more patients to dr than outside). they've been fucking awesome. or my friends who are gps

Apologies for last night’s outburst, mate. This is an issue that is a little raw with me just now.

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:37 pm Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

Stop reading the TorieGraph FFS

The GP system isn't exactly patient-friendly at the best of times. Surgeries have systems that are designed to prevent patients from seeing their doctor on demand because they wouldn't be able to cope with it. Hence the receptionists screening aggressively while they technically meet the 24 hour appointment requirement by letting you get one if you phone between the hours of 8.11am and 8.13am.

My elderly father had been prescribed blood thinners due to DVT. After a telephone call visit off GP,they upped his dose. He started having mini strokes we can best describe it as and after numerous calls where he was told to take paracetamol, he was getting worse. One episode was bad so I called paramedics. Rushed in, the blood tablets had caused a bleed on the brain, no clot or sign of one anywhere and was told if he'd kept taken them he'd have croaked.
All this time, still not seen his GP once....

Our GP surgery is still not doing face to face appointments, local FB group is chock full of complaints (I mean, it's always full of complaints about something, usually traffic and dem youfs, it's that kind of village)

Wife's surgery has been seeing patients f2f the whole time, and just adjusting definitions around who needs to be seen.

One of our local GPs, not the practice I use but a local one, was prior to Covid in the process of trying to sell his practice or at least farm it out to be run by locums, partly he wanted to retire, partly he'd been diagnosed with lung cancer and wanted given things didn't look good to spend time with his family. As a result of Covid he's kept working in an effort to support his fellow doctors, and both his practice and the one I use have continued to see patients at their offices and house visits. I've heard nothing but good things about both practices. Perhaps the positive stories around them are truly in the minority, but I'm nothing but impressed with some very put upon workers

Even Pre- Covid some GP practices were pretty shit.
Practice I was with the most any doctor did was a 2 day week.

My most recent interaction with a new GP practice was via phone only.

At least Opticians seem to be working fine.

This crap serves one purpose, and one purpose only. It’s running the NHS down in the public eye, to soften up the voters for privatisation.

Go ahead and bookmark this.

Lobby wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:24 pm

Biffer wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:57 pm My GP does phone calls first then an in person appointment if necessary. I’m actually quite comfortable with speaking to the doctor on the phone or maybe a zoom first, I think it might be more efficient. But I appreciate for some it won’t be right.

It’s impossible to get an appointment with my GP, even to speak with them on the phone. It takes upwards of an hour to get through to the surgery on the phone, only to be told that there are no appointments left and to try again tomorrow or ring NHS direct if it’s urgent. Rinse and repeat each day.

This is the problem with free healthcare. Canada is the same in my lived experience.

It's overwhelmed, mostly by hypochondriacs.

A modest, user-pays fee-based system emphasises the value of the service.

I think Australia and New Zealand do it better.

Yr Alban wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:52 pm This crap serves one purpose, and one purpose only. It’s running the NHS down in the public eye, to soften up the voters for privatisation.

Go ahead and bookmark this.

GPs are already privatised.

There are aspects of the NHS that are either systemically broken or are failing patients and pretending otherwise is counterproductive.

robmatic wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 6:57 am

Yr Alban wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:52 pm This crap serves one purpose, and one purpose only. It’s running the NHS down in the public eye, to soften up the voters for privatisation.

Go ahead and bookmark this.

GPs are already privatised.

There are aspects of the NHS that are either systemically broken or are failing patients and pretending otherwise is counterproductive.

They’re technically businesses, but they’re not privatised, because with the exception of the occasional private GP in London, they contract solely with the NHS to provide NHS services. They don’t get to set their price per patient - they get a flat capitation fee per person registered.the only bit that works more like the private sector is that if you are a partner, you get a share of practice drawings rather than a salary, but you have to buy a share in the business to do this, and trust me, few people want to be a partner just now.

As for your second point, I absolutely agree. Much of the NHS is broken and failing patients. The lie is that this has anything to do with GPs (or anyone else) being lazy or greedy. It’s a combination of systematic underfunding (NHS spending has flatlined in real terms since the Tories entered No 10 in 2010) and the twin recent pressures caused by Covid and Brexit (most EU nurses have left).

Mark my words, the current government wants the NHS to fail, and fail visibly. It’s the only way they will be able to get the public to accept selling off more and more of it to private capital to enrich them and their mates. And you’re falling for it.

On r4 right now

God I fucking hate this country.
We really do have to start taxing people until they have to fuck off...

Is there any right wing trope that doesn't make peoples testicles tingle?

You would have thought after the disaster of Brexit half the country would just shut the fuck up.

A close family member of mine is a GP and the stories she tells from her practice really make me immune to ‘NHS heroes’ stuff. She’s the only doctor doing visits 18 months later, another doctor stole all their PPE in April last year and distributed it to her family for going to the supermarket, anything non essential has basically broken down.
Her quote to them of ‘firemen don’t go home because the building is too hot’ doesn’t seem to register with the rest

An old school friend of mine is a GP near the Cotswolds. His wife is also a GP, they have a very comfortable life.

Paddington Bear wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:23 pm A close family member of mine is a GP and the stories she tells from her practice really make me immune to ‘NHS heroes’ stuff. She’s the only doctor doing visits 18 months later, another doctor stole all their PPE in April last year and distributed it to her family for going to the supermarket, anything non essential has basically broken down.
Her quote to them of ‘firemen don’t go home because the building is too hot’ doesn’t seem to register with the rest

There'll be a share of cunts for sure. Some of the awful private school boys I went to school and uni with were going into medicine.

Don't forget though, that GPs are private(ish) and not fully part of the NHS behemoth. They have a good deal more freedom to do whatever the hell they want.

Sandstorm wrote: Wed Sep 22, 2021 8:37 pm Big backlash against UK GPs still refusing to see patients face to face when everyone else is basically back to normal. Petition started too.

I support it 100%. Lazy, overpaid pricks.

Certainly true of most of them at the best of times. This has been the ideal excuse for the lazy bastards to take their salaries and final salary pensions for doing nothing.

Calculon wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:18 pm An old school friend of mine is a GP near the Cotswolds. His wife is also a GP, they have a very comfortable life.

Thought you wer Globus for a second there, about to launch into something

And still the hate goes on. Do you not realise this is precisely what the government wants? It wants you so steamed up about the perceived poor service that when they start selling clinical services off to private capital, you’ll cheer and wave them through. But that road does not lead anywhere good. At the very best, you’re looking at compulsory state health insurance (on top of whatever tax you pay now). At worst, you’re looking at co-payments and US-style HMOs. Just like the EU, people won’t appreciate the benefits of the NHS until it’s gone, and then it will be far too late.

The image of the greedy GP who is always on the golf course is still pervasive, I see. Well, I can’t speak for the whole UK, and I’m sure that there are examples of bad practice out there if you look. But I know plenty of GPs around here. They’re not ‘refusing to see patients’ - they’ve been doing face to face consultations the whole time. I can personally attest that when my wife found a breast lump last year she was in the surgery being examined in a matter of hours. What they have been doing - as directed by government - has been to move more of the service online, to avoid having a waiting room full of sick people with potential Covid. So now most things start with an e-consult. The problem is that when you have a certain number of appointments, you can manage demand, but you can submit multiple e-consults every day if you wish, and some people apparently do. All of these have to be reviewed and appropriate action taken. All the GPs I know are working flat out and ready to drop (though to be fair we had a major recruitment problem before Covid started). Just because your GP is doing fewer face-to-face consultations, it doesn’t follow that they are out playing golf.

As for whoever mentioned pensions - that gave me a hollow laugh. Medical pensions have been raided and raided and raided. If you retired a few years ago you might be fine, but the final salary schemes have been replaced with career average, the amount senior doctors pay in contributions is by far the highest in the public sector (17.5% currently - MPs exempted themselves from this, naturally), and due to reductions in the annual allowance and tapering over the last few years, many doctors have suddenly been presented with bills for tens of thousands of pounds in tax on income they have never actually received and can’t access until they retire. This has exacerbated staffing shortages, as senior doctors have cut their hours to avoid the risk of such charges, and in a system that depends on a lot of people doing a lot of extra work, that’s disastrous.

I’m not a GP. I’ll even admit to a little occasional schadenfreude at the concept of trying to cope with mushrooming demand (as this is a daily reality in my specialty). But if you genuinely believe that they are all lazy and work-shy, you’re off your head. And the government thinks you are a useful idiot.

I know some things are dealt with more quickly than others. Got in touch with my GP re a lump on the back of my neck (no, it’s not my head) on Thursday, saw him at 10:00 this morning (Monday).