GPs to cancel 'minor' surgery and healthchecks

Sorry not the scan, the referral bit was the problem. The physiotherapist at the GP took a look on the video call and then referred me to a&e. I then waited hours to be assessed again, the nurse took one look at it and said it was very likely broken but sent me for the x-ray anyway to confirm. The original nurse (in the outside waiting room) said that the physio could have referred me on the system directly to the x-ray department, bypassing the a&e/4 hour wait stage. It all seemed over the top and unnecessarily drawn out, and many people in distress were turned away that day after the waiting rooms filled up. If I'd been referred correctly I would have been one less person to see in a&e. The hospital were great, the GP didn't fill me with confidence.

It is a lottery though, as you say. At my old GP, I politely asked a woman blocking my car in in the car park first thing in the morning if she worked there and, if so, I would drive out of the car park and try and find a space on the street (easier said than done first thing in the morning in Bedminster). Turns out she was the receptionist, and was openly slagging me off to the other receptionist as I waited, mimicking me asking her if we could change the cars around. Some people shouldn't work in patient-facing roles, and others are born to do it and lovely.

 

Seems to be down to individual GP Surgeries.
It’s near on impossible to physically see a GP at ours since COVID started.
Nearly everything is now done via ask my gp or by phone.
Oddly though at the same surgery Nurses can see Diabetics and take bloods

 

I didn't know they had ever opened up since they originally shut down

 

Telephone appointments only at most surgeries?

https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-s...force/pressures/pressures-in-general-practice

 

Doesn’t fit the narrative. I do think that moving GPS away from preventative work is a very bad idea.

 

My husband has seen one three times in the last 6 months or so. They all started with a quick telephone consultation with a face to face booked in twice the same day and once the next. He’s also had a chest X-ray, nose camera and colonoscopy at 3 separate hospitals and has another follow up appointment in January. Have you actually had genuine need of a face to face and been refused?

 

Yes definitely settled down after the blanket shutting April 2020. You really couldn't see a doctor then. The telephone triage system actually seems to have helped at ours as both my wife and Dad have recently been seen face to face with a few hours of phoning.

 

Agreed on both counts.

 

'This'.

 

There’s a postcode lottery in NHS which is criminally sad. The contrast between my mum’s surgery in Swinton and mine in Kendal is shocking. Number of patients to GP and the residency time of GP’s at the practice. Just one of many areas of life that need proper levelling up. Pay doctors more to work the unfashionable surgeries and while we’re at it do the same with schools. More money going in to less affluent areas please.