Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

But a receptionist on a phone can't diagnose a physical injury or issue Medicine . . .

I'm on about something similar to what you have in A&E - a quick assessment of what's wrong, with the next action decided swiftly.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

Our local reception decides if you should have a phone call from a doctor and then the doctor decides if you need an appointment. Takes about a day to get through this system to then be possibly booked an appointment a couple of weeks later. Or you're refered to a pharmacist etc.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

My wife used to work on reception sometimes for a dermatologist practice ( she was practice manager ), the doctors often ran late as they did small ops on the day to save people coming back if they had traveled a long way ( this was in Sydney Oz, and many patients traveled hundreds of miles ). The receptionist got the flack but when the doctor came through the grumpy buggers were a nice as pie. My wife instigated a plan that when the doctor was running late, the number of Jelly Babies on the plate that came in with their tea or coffee showed how late they were running, 1 jelly baby = 15 mins, 2 = 30 mins etc....

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

The procedure you seem to be advocating already exists. You don't just get to see a doctor by ringing up and asking to see one like you might have done at one time. The receptionist may refer you to a nurse or arrange triage, or whatever it is when you speak to somebody on the phone, and if that doesn't work you might then get to see a doctor.
But it had got more difficult to see a doctor even before Covid.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

No wonder A&E is always overloaded - it is easier to go there than to see your GP, and most GP's will send you to hospital anyway.... I am struggling to think why we need GP's any more.. When I was in Aussie they were opening more and more 'drop-in' medical centres in busy areas, with peoples medical records available online it made sense.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

The GP System is geared up for pandemics/an overwhelmed setup and always has been for as long as I can remember - it doesn't really put care first, just survival. Here, you have to ring between 8.30am and 9.30am and stay on hold for around 30 minutes or more. I think the thinking is, the most ill will ring earliest - but obviously everyone rings at the same time. Usually they'll answer about 9.35am and say 'sorry it's past 9.30am try again tomorrow' so if you're not dead by the next day ,and it's important, you'll call again, if it's minor you'll be too fed up to try. The thing I've always found odd/lacking is the approach to diagnosis; there's no follow up or plan it just seems to be led by the shortsighted triage system 'get them out of the practice ASAP'. When I want to fix something I usually use process of elimination and I'm pretty sure doctors do too to some extent, however when I try a troubleshooting step I check it's worked before settling it as resolved. If you ring a doctor with with a trouble they might go 'hmm it's either constipation or deadly bum cancer, we'll try you with some laxatives first' so you trot off to get laxatives and while there's a chance the doctor was wrong and you've withered and died - if you don't call back they assume you're all fixed.

I suppose with the service being free, if they checked back in with customers a good number would just keep leading the doc on a wild goose chase but I'm not sure it's quite the right balance we have.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

Don't forget that the UK population is aging, the average age is now 40.5 years and 22.5% are 60 years and older. An aging population and fewer GPs means it's harder to see one. GP numbers started to decline in 2009 but it's not an even distribution - a bigger decline in poorer areas.
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/new...-in-gp-numbers

The media seem to want to blame the GPs themselves but it's another case of underinvestment.
https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2234

Boris' recent comment hopefully doesn't reflect Conservative healthcare thinking (Oct2021):

“I’ve given you the most important metric – never mind life expectancy, never mind cancer outcomes – look at wage growth.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

For a civilised country we have got a lot wrong, just read this;
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknew...sts/ar-AAP7GqC

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

Grease-Bogg doesn't give a flying fart about people like the poor chap in that report. He and his crooked cronies need dropping off in some remote, uninhabited location where they can do no more damage. Or prison.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

Spot on! Wouldn't do the prison thing... more to burden the tax payer with!