Reasonable time to wait for Doctors appointment
Discussion
btsidi said:
Threads like this make me wonder why more people don't use a Private GP service?
Call during the morning, and you can be seen by lunchtime, have a 15 min appointment, and non patent prescriptions can cost less than the £8 NHS standard charge too.
I can call in the morning, see a GP the same day with a 10 or 20 minute appointment and my prescriptions are free - all on the NHS.Call during the morning, and you can be seen by lunchtime, have a 15 min appointment, and non patent prescriptions can cost less than the £8 NHS standard charge too.
My local surgery as i think i mentioned earlier offers drop in slots at 8 and 11.30
Call to book a time
Rang at 8.30 and 11.30 on the nose only to be told no spaces at all until next Wednesday.
Its bad enough that its worse when you call and they don't have enough phone lines to get through to begin with. :/
Call to book a time
Rang at 8.30 and 11.30 on the nose only to be told no spaces at all until next Wednesday.
Its bad enough that its worse when you call and they don't have enough phone lines to get through to begin with. :/
btsidi said:
Threads like this make me wonder why more people don't use a Private GP service?
Call during the morning, and you can be seen by lunchtime, have a 15 min appointment, and non patent prescriptions can cost less than the £8 NHS standard charge too.
My NHS GP only offers same or next day appointments for new problems. So I am always seen within a day or two. They also offer a choice of 10 or 15 minute appointments. Not sure what advantage I would get by paying more for the same wait.Call during the morning, and you can be seen by lunchtime, have a 15 min appointment, and non patent prescriptions can cost less than the £8 NHS standard charge too.
I'm sure this is obvious, but General Practice has been short of doctors for years, and the problem's getting worse because the number of people entering training is going down every year. The reason is extremely simple: my wife's a GP and works 12-15 hour days without breaks, for about half the take home pay that I earn working an easy 7½ hour day with a proper lunch break, and she trained for about 7 years to do it - it's not a very attractive profession to go into! On top of that the government want to increase practice opening hours dramatically without recruiting more doctors, and that prospect of things getting even worse puts people off even more. We are therefore in the midst of a major problem with an even bigger one on the horizon.
All of the above results in the nationwide shortage of doctors which is why we all have to wait so long to get seen and are often rushed through when we are seen. There's not much that can be done, other than petitioning the government or going private.
All of the above results in the nationwide shortage of doctors which is why we all have to wait so long to get seen and are often rushed through when we are seen. There's not much that can be done, other than petitioning the government or going private.
RobM77 said:
I'm sure this is obvious, but General Practice has been short of doctors for years, and the problem's getting worse because the number of people entering training is going down every year. The reason is extremely simple: my wife's a GP and works 12-15 hour days without breaks, for about half the take home pay that I earn working an easy 7½ hour day with a proper lunch break, and she trained for about 7 years to do it - it's not a very attractive profession to go into! On top of that the government want to increase practice opening hours dramatically without recruiting more doctors, and that prospect of things getting even worse puts people off even more. We are therefore in the midst of a major problem with an even bigger one on the horizon.
All of the above results in the nationwide shortage of doctors which is why we all have to wait so long to get seen and are often rushed through when we are seen. There's not much that can be done, other than petitioning the government or going private.
You either earn a crap load of money or your GP wife is doing something very wrong. It's not generally a low paid or long hours job unless the GP chooses it to be so.All of the above results in the nationwide shortage of doctors which is why we all have to wait so long to get seen and are often rushed through when we are seen. There's not much that can be done, other than petitioning the government or going private.
Average UK GP wage is just below £100k and given most surgeries are 8.30 to 6.30 I'm not sure how 15 hour days without breaks are happening. Must be lots of overtime to achieve that workload (and £££) or am I missing something?
Edited by Blaster72 on Wednesday 11th May 19:28
Blaster72 said:
Sorry, just read that back and it comes across really badly. I'm just shocked a GP could be on poor wages and 15 hour days.
15 hours without a break is surely against the law and unsafe practice for that kind of job though?
That's ok. It's a combination of things. I'm fairly well paid, but the killer for a GP is the insurance and fees, so whilst the salary is good, they come out of your wages immediately each month. For example, the insurance alone is over £600 a month. The pension's also huge, which will be great for us in twenty years, but leaves us quite short now! Finally, the average figure you quoted is probably for a partner; my wife is a standard salaried GP and is on nowhere near that. She was a partner for a brief period, but the hours were ludicrous.15 hours without a break is surely against the law and unsafe practice for that kind of job though?
Clinic is indeed 8am till 6pm, but there is mountains of paperwork to do on top of that. It is possible to work fewer hours, but according to my wife anyway, if you do that you will be cutting corners and she cares too much for the patients to do that. As far as I know, medicine opted out of the safe working hours legislation many years ago, which I guess is part of the problem at the moment with the junior doctors' contract? I'm no expert on these things though as I'm trained in Physics and work in IT! Thankfully!
RobM77 said:
That's ok. It's a combination of things. I'm fairly well paid, but the killer for a GP is the insurance and fees, so whilst the salary is good, they come out of your wages immediately each month. For example, the insurance alone is over £600 a month. The pension's also huge, which will be great for us in twenty years, but leaves us quite short now! Finally, the average figure you quoted is probably for a partner; my wife is a standard salaried GP and is on nowhere near that. She was a partner for a brief period, but the hours were ludicrous.
Clinic is indeed 8am till 6pm, but there is mountains of paperwork to do on top of that. It is possible to work fewer hours, but according to my wife anyway, if you do that you will be cutting corners and she cares too much for the patients to do that. As far as I know, medicine opted out of the safe working hours legislation many years ago, which I guess is part of the problem at the moment with the junior doctors' contract? I'm no expert on these things though as I'm trained in Physics and work in IT! Thankfully!
My surgery publish the average salary for FTE GPs. That is £71K, (there are 3 partners and about 6/7 GPs). That is roughly the same that I get paid (work in IT) and I don't have to pay for insurance, work pretty much 9-5:30 every day (odd bit of late working now and again) and don't have to deal with masses of sick people each day. If I cock up the worse that might happen is a client gets pissed off and we may lose some money. If a GP cocks up the result could be awful.Clinic is indeed 8am till 6pm, but there is mountains of paperwork to do on top of that. It is possible to work fewer hours, but according to my wife anyway, if you do that you will be cutting corners and she cares too much for the patients to do that. As far as I know, medicine opted out of the safe working hours legislation many years ago, which I guess is part of the problem at the moment with the junior doctors' contract? I'm no expert on these things though as I'm trained in Physics and work in IT! Thankfully!
Don't know why anyone would want become a GP
Blaster72 said:
Thanks for that, it's amazing how many safety critical sectors have just opted out of the working time directive limits.
The insurance is a real stinger too, I had no idea GPs had to self insure for so much!
The insurance is a real stinger too, I had no idea GPs had to self insure for so much!
944 sums it up well too. On top of the insurance are the BMA fees, and of course you pay for your own training.I finish work at 4pm every day and I often manage to go windsurfing or cycling afterwards, get home, shower, cook dinner from scratch, eat and wash up before my wife gets in! I genuinely can't remember the last time we ate dinner together on a weekday. As 944 says too, the stress and responsibility is on another level too.
We are lucky we can usually get an appointment within a day or so. But if you say you think you really need to see a doctor they will arrange a call back and if the doctor thinks he does need to see you it will be the same day.
My father, who is 87, has all the usual OAP problems but he also has had Addisons for 40+ years. But if he needs to see his GP it's usually a 2-3 week wait and he can only see his GP and not another GP in the practice.
WRT 111: I had to call them a couple of weeks ago as my wife's blood sugar had dropped to 3.5 and I didn't know what to do.
Couple of desert spoons of jam sorted it out, but the call handler had me check every 5 minutes for 20 minutes.
During this time they asked about other things I told them that she had some chest pains a couple of hours ago.
About 4 minutes later an ambulance turned up!
The two paramedics were brilliant, they stayed for over 2 hours. They told us that if they had to take her to a hospital it would be one that wouldn't have a heart guy on duty so the would have to go back and take her to another hospital because the control room wouldn't let they take her to the second hospital first.
We all agreed it's a daft situation but management make the rules!
My father, who is 87, has all the usual OAP problems but he also has had Addisons for 40+ years. But if he needs to see his GP it's usually a 2-3 week wait and he can only see his GP and not another GP in the practice.
WRT 111: I had to call them a couple of weeks ago as my wife's blood sugar had dropped to 3.5 and I didn't know what to do.
Couple of desert spoons of jam sorted it out, but the call handler had me check every 5 minutes for 20 minutes.
During this time they asked about other things I told them that she had some chest pains a couple of hours ago.
About 4 minutes later an ambulance turned up!
The two paramedics were brilliant, they stayed for over 2 hours. They told us that if they had to take her to a hospital it would be one that wouldn't have a heart guy on duty so the would have to go back and take her to another hospital because the control room wouldn't let they take her to the second hospital first.
We all agreed it's a daft situation but management make the rules!
A reasonable time to get a GP appointment depends on what it is for
there are some things which there is no reasonable time - either becasue you need to be seen right away and whisked off the the most appropriate hospital Asap
or because it's so trivial and short lived ( i.e. not given time to run it's usual course) you don;t need a GP appointment, you probably don.t even need to be seen by any health professional - although the community pharmacists will do a damn fine job of making sure there is no red flag symptom and sorting you out with the appropriate meds )
same day / next day appointments are available in the vastest majority of practices , if you ask and if you clinically need them ( and sometimes that might mean a triage phone call from one of the Docs or a Nurse practitioner)
rountine appointments week to ten days is not unreasonable ...
there are some things which there is no reasonable time - either becasue you need to be seen right away and whisked off the the most appropriate hospital Asap
or because it's so trivial and short lived ( i.e. not given time to run it's usual course) you don;t need a GP appointment, you probably don.t even need to be seen by any health professional - although the community pharmacists will do a damn fine job of making sure there is no red flag symptom and sorting you out with the appropriate meds )
same day / next day appointments are available in the vastest majority of practices , if you ask and if you clinically need them ( and sometimes that might mean a triage phone call from one of the Docs or a Nurse practitioner)
rountine appointments week to ten days is not unreasonable ...
Edited by mph1977 on Friday 13th May 11:26
Another little-known hack to get a really quick appointment at most surgeries - especially for the more savvy among us, who have half a clue about what's wrong and how it might be treated - is to use the Nurse Practitioners instead of the GP's.
I'm not sure if every surgery in the country has them, but certainly round here they all do. My own surgery has increased their numbers quite drastically recently.
They are quite advanced with regard to their scope of practice, and can consult, diagnose and prescribe from a fairly wide formulary.
Hence, to give a recent example of my own, I had a minor outer ear infection come on, for which I was fairly sure could be treated with Antibiotic ear drops. I called my surgery - 'can I see a GP please?' The answer was 'sure, we can fit you in next week...'
I then asked to see a NP instead, with the response of 'what time would be best for you today?'
I was there an hour later, diagnosis confirmed, prescription in hand five minutes later. Sorted.
Worth remembering for y'all!
I'm not sure if every surgery in the country has them, but certainly round here they all do. My own surgery has increased their numbers quite drastically recently.
They are quite advanced with regard to their scope of practice, and can consult, diagnose and prescribe from a fairly wide formulary.
Hence, to give a recent example of my own, I had a minor outer ear infection come on, for which I was fairly sure could be treated with Antibiotic ear drops. I called my surgery - 'can I see a GP please?' The answer was 'sure, we can fit you in next week...'
I then asked to see a NP instead, with the response of 'what time would be best for you today?'
I was there an hour later, diagnosis confirmed, prescription in hand five minutes later. Sorted.
Worth remembering for y'all!
Gassing Station | Health Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff