GOD BE WITH THE DAYS WHEN MEDICINE WAS A VOCATION!

Genuinely? No interest at all in GPs. USELESS. Absolutley f**k**g useless! Can do absolutely FA do for a patient except refer him to a doctor who CAN help him. It won’t be the useless GP.😅

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Well my GP has been keeping information about me and I’m going to complain to the GDPR people. Last time I went he wanted my blood pressure so I told him to mind his own business.

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Pat, your experience is replicated around the province. An article in July in the Telegraph indicated that only 25% of gps work full time in the UK. This is having a severe impact on patients and putting an added and ongoing stress on A&E facilities everywhere.
The laugh is that money appears to be part of the reason for this due to pension regulations, but with gps earning £120k pa, this gives the impression they’re in it for the money not to provide adequate patient care.
Our local practice in Co. Derry is opened four and a half days a week and when you ring and eventually get through, you are faced with office staff who triage your call. This is a total cop out by the gps.
My wife had a rare stroke over 2 years ago and when my daughter rang to speak to a gp, the receptionist refused to allow her to speak directly to a gp. She was a medical student at the time and now a trained doctor. This condition is time critical and because it presented as atypical, we wanted to have a quick discussion just to confirm the diagnosis. The doctor rang back 45 mins later and gave off to my daughter about her “direct” approach to their triage expert.
Long story short, my wife went to A&E, was misdiagnosed with migrainous vertigo, sent home the same day despite worrying symptoms. She only got a proper diagnosis 3 months later following a MRI, simply because we pushed the issue.
Thankfully, she has recovered but our experience particularly with frontline gp service and A&E was exceptionally poor.

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Your experience + Pat chimes exactly with mine. You phone for an appointment, wait 30 mins / 45 mins in the queue to be told that all appointments have gone, and that you will have to phone back this afternoon, or tomorrow. So, you do, only to be told that all the appointments have gone, please phone back tomorrow morning…..and so on.
If you turn up in person at the surgery to ask about an appointment, the overwhelming sense from the receptionists is that you have an impertinence to be there and to expect anything.
When I made a bit of fuss, I was informed that this was not private health care and I could not expect the kind of treatment that I wanted. To which my response was, that this is my private health care plan because I have paid in to it for the last 55 years with my taxes and NI contributions ! Bloody cheek of them !
Remember, in the UK GP practices are a business owned by the GP partners, and they have a vested interest in making as much money as they can. So, they trim accordingly. To hell with the convenience of their patients as long as the GPs are making money ! I have noted that occasionally the GPs are contacting me to make an appointment for a blood test, cholesterol testing, blood pressure testing etc. I’ve worked out that the reason they are contacting me is that there is a fee that they receive when they hit targets so are keen to get me ticked off. But, if I decided I want to see the GP myself for my own reasons, sod that ! I’m costing them money so they are not bothered.
I’ve noticed also that the majority of GPs in my practice only work part time. It’s clear that what they are earning by working only part time is still more than enough to live in the nice houses in the nice neighbourhoods, still enables them to drive their Volvo cars, to send their kids to the nice fee paying schools, and still to go on their skiing holidays and summer holidays. Oh, and don’t forget the ‘conferences’ they are able to go on paid for by drug companies whose products they prescribe to us. When we eventually can see them !

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You would think with these medical woes the church would set up free clinics for poor people. They are a charity, after all, and Christians like helping people. 😀

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Many GP surgeries on the mainland are closing for the day on Monday, as a sign of respecr.

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I have a new gp with a couple of months she’s lovely but can’t seem to get through to them they never answer the phone and they are so busy I’m expected to wait a couple of days for an appointment.
Your alot nicer than me pat, I tore him my old gp a new asshole over email, he hates confrontation, so I confronted him with plenty. he was useless.
I couldn’t get a new gp in town ,I comtwcted loads, none would take me on all doctors were full to capacity , I had to write to the hse they assigned one to me.
Doctors don’t care anymore, all lawsuits and over whelmed, it’s a bloody joke for those of us that have health problems

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