Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

Our surgery is classed as a 'Super Surgery', not because of the quality but purely because of the size and number of doctors. A number of the doctors there have 'speciality' areas. It's supposed to avoid the need to refer to the hospital!

 

I've not come across a super surgery, most around here are in newish buildings but still carry on like its 1960, ok they are a bit different but do nothing other than look, no treatment other than nurses doing dressing changes etc.
The doctors are not into treatment of any kind, just look assess and refer if they think necessary.
But trying to see one is only for those that can get passed the front desk.

 

@pete I've just looked on the practice's website. They have 26 doctors, and a list of the GP you should request to see for particular issues. That's a joke as you are unlikely to see a GP at all on your first visit, it's nearly always a nurse practitioner or paramedic practitioner. That's why it took best part of 6 months from requesting an appointment for the lesion on my cheek to a final decision everything was OK. That broke down to about a week for the initial appointment, 4 days for the initial prescription to be made up, week of use, call surgery for appointment with GP. 2 week wait for that appointment with paramedic practitioner despite the original nurse practitioner putting in the notes that I needed to see a GP if the lesion hadn't cleared, another 3 week with a different cream. Finally referred to GP with 3 week wait for appointment. He said he wanted a biopsy done - more delay.....

 

I also wondered what our GPs were doing on the days they are not listed as having surgery appointments. It looks as if on those days, they are the ones reading the letters back from hospital consultants, and results from blood tests etc. Also reviewing requests for prescriptions, and going through the on line consultations. Then calling back the patients who need a same day telephone consultation or actually seeing the urgent same days appointments. So pretty busy! Although it does mean we have to wait longer for a ‘booked’ appointment, at least we don’t have the same situation I’ve experienced in the ‘old days’ - that of having sat patiently in the waiting room, counting down the people who were there before you arrived, knowing it was nearly your turn, and then seeing the doctor heading out of the door with their doctors bag in hand to see an emergency!
Of course, not all GPs work ( or get paid) full time, some with family commitments, some of ours do sessions at the local acute hospital, with benefits for the practice patients.

 

I dont doubt that GPs are actually working on those days when they are not taking appointments, it just seems strange that some years ago they did do a full 5 days in the surgery.
In all these kinds of jobs there seems to be a lot more involved these days.

An old saying where I used to work was, the work will increase to fit the time available, if that makes sense.

When getting new machinery that did the job faster it just meant we had more time to do the job, that was how management saw it anyway.

 

@Ergates, think I would rather it was like the old days when one waited in a waiting room I could always guarantee seeing my Doctor.

 

I understand what you mean about the water @CanadianLori, but I just feel less guilty about using treated water [ie hose and tap] for garden plants if I'm offsetting it a bit with saving the shower water! I've decided to 'make' a garden, so I think it's the least I can do to preserve our resources. It's an increasingly precious resource in the UK, and even though we don't have any problems up here in the west of Scotland just now, there's no doubt that we're getting less rainfall through spring/summer, and for longer periods of time. Currently, we've had no rain since last Monday [about 10 days] which is unheard of, and temps have been higher than they normally would be through August. It's often quite grey and cloudy here, and generally cooler, which does help re plants, but I also installed a water butt last year, just for some extra backup. I'd never have felt the need for that five years ago.
Of course - winters are different, but that's part of the problem too - slightly higher temps mean more rain nowadays rather than snow, so there's that imbalance over a year

 

A few years ago, pre-Covid, the doctor I saw seemed much more chatty than most. It turned out that he had quit as a partner in a practice and now just worked as a locum. He said that as a partner, he was spending far more time on meetings and paperwork than treating patients. As a locum he avoided 'all that crap' (his words) and he was much happier in his work seeing patients all day.

 

I think some of the trouble with doctors in general is that they don't want to be made accountable. I used to need regular bloodtests for my oncologist and even though it should have been done at the gp surgery, they always tried to get out of it and make me go to the hospital (where they didn't get charged for the test). One day when I did have a test at the gp's ,I heard a lady come in wanting an appointment and after she made it, she asked if there was someone who could look at a mole which may be cancerous. The receptionist wasn't impressed because this needed a new appointment and basically said the Dr would just refer her to the hospital but she couldn't see one for about 3 months, so she can politely sod off to the walk in centre. The lady left in tears and was probably told to sod off at the walk in centre as well.
When I had an appointment with my oncologist I asked them to have a quick look at a mole on my back to see if it was a problem but again they wouldn't and said I would have to book a gp appointment. So in my opinion it's just going round in circles, everyone shifting the blame/work to someone else instead of actually dealing with anything. Why is it that in other countries you have gp's, pharmacies and specialists, all located together, so you can go from one to the next at the same time.

 

Whilst there's little doubt that the NHS neds a complete overhaul from top to bottom, I wonder whether the apparent reluctance of some GP's to deal with every medical issue is due to the possibility of making an error re diagnosis/wrong medication. The increasing culture of demanding enquiries and possible compensation whenever something goes wrong can't help. Doctors, whether GP's or specialists, are as susceptible to making mistakes as any of us.

Having said that, some of the pay increases/demands/strikes suggest that they should be working miracles

 

Everything is in a right Mucking Fess

 

I heard a statement yesterday it said, if voting actually changed things they would ban it.
Sounds about right to me, it just seems impossible to change the thinking within these organisations, they are more powerful than we think and none of them want change.

We are all doing very nicely thankyou is the motto of the top people, you cant change any of it, but they dont mind you adding another layer on all the time.
They are a law unto themselves.

Just look at the post office scandal, sorting it out is still getting stopped at every turn by the legal system, in cahoots with those that need to go to prison.

 

My In laws have known me since 1989 and still they cannot spell my first name correctly. Just rude and uncaring.

 

Maybe they just cant spell.

 

Doctors get paid for the number on the books and not the amount of patients they see, my partner who is a doctor only works part time because she'd pay to much tax if full time