GPs raise alarm as patients flag life-threatening symptoms via non-urgent form

21 comments

1. I think this, and the stuff upper lip is going to cause a lot of deaths. That’s the reason we need face to face with doctors who understand classic British understatement.

2. To Whom It May Concern,

   I have shooting pains in my chest.

   Please respond forthwith.

   Yours sincerely.

3. Notice how both headlines are prominent at the minute:

   “Don’t go to A&E unless you’re really quite seriously about to die!”

   “Don’t go to the GP if your symptoms are life threatening!”

   Feels like one could exacerbate the other.

4. I recently had a routine BP check (as part of other ongoing treatment) and they were concerned.

   I had to go back three weeks later and have another test, which also came back unusually high.

   I had to buy myself a monitor and take a week’s worth of measurements, which had to be taken to the local pharmacist. When I did this, they sent an urgent request for me to see a doctor.

   I waited two weeks to get a text message asking me to make an appointment.

   Thanks to the Hunger Games system employed by GP receptionists, it took another two weeks of calling to get an appointment.

   When I turned up, it wasn’t with the GP as requested, it was with the nurse. She told me to take some readings for a week and go see a pharmacist…

   In all of this, my blood pressure was only high when I was trying to be seen, due to the anxiety or being messed around. I’ve taken the view that if I’m not dead, it must not have been something to worry about.

5. Well if you write it down on a form it can’t be ignored, whereas when you try and explain it to a receptionist it can.

6. I used the form, for the first time, last week, and I thought it was great. It allows you to get through to the surgery, and for a Dr to review your needs, without having to spend hours holding on the phone.
   Since COVID, I have found it almost impossible to access a GP. Calling the surgery took forever and, more often than not, by the time I got through I was told that all appointments were taken and to call back tomorrow.
   I filled in the form, online, and explained my symptoms. Within 15 minutes I had a call from one of the GPs to arrange for me to go in. Within an hour of filling in the form, I had seen a Dr. So much fairer than the 8 am telephone scramble.

7. My surgery has had this option long before it has been made mandatory, and it explicitly makes it clear (basically a warning message) that if you are experiencing serious, potentially life threatening symptoms (eg. Symptoms of a heart attack, stroke, head injury etc) to go to A&E, all before you can continue with the form to submit it.

8. But the doctors are the ones we go to to identify whether the symptoms are life threatening or just a temporary glitch. Of course we don’t know which ones are life threatening and which aren’t, we don’t have that training.

9. Our new online GP form is the most counter intuitive form I’ve used (and I work in tech..)

   Oh you want a blood test? Oh yeah you can’t do it here, it’s on the NHS app. Oh the NHS app says you need to get a doctor to confirm you need blood tests.. Okay.. But what appointment type? SECRET.

10. The way this is positioned is weird “We set up a way for people to contact us and it turns out all these patients want to contact us!!” 😨

    I suppose this is GP surgeries way of pressuring for more money for staff. Which is a good thing. They shouldn’t be shaming patients for contacting them though.

11. Yeah that’s because if you use the urgent form they tell you they can’t help and you have to call back at 8am next day or go to A&E

    If you flag non urgent there’s a chance they actually let you submit and look at it

12. [removed]

13. Anywhere you go to get medical help in this country, their first aim is to get rid of you. If you call the GP, they tell you to fill the form or call 111.
    111 will offer you a call back in 6 hours and advice you to take paracetamol and chill, or go to A&E.
    A&E will tell you to go back home and call your GP tomorrow.

14. Dear Sir/Madam,

    Please be advised that I am currently bleeding profusely and require an ambulance as a matter of urgency. I will prepare myself for collection by a member of your team within the next 7 days, making every endeavour to remain alive in this time.

    Kindest regards

15. No such system even available at my GP!
    My doctors have removed any form of contact through the app and state that any contact must be the telephone call lottery at 8am. No one answers the phone before 8am and is then constantly engaged from 1 second past 8.00. If you visit the surgery and try to book an appointment face to face little miss Hitler tells you categorically that you must call the surgery to book an appointment!!!

16. yeah and then people leave themselves to die because ‘you wouldn’t call an ambulance for *xyz*’ and the guilt tripping from many people and organisations about going to hospital and then turning out to not have a serious illness. the truth is you could have a serious illness, but people are shamed for not having a serious illness because you supposedly wasted everyone’s time.

    A&E people forget is there to also rule out serious causes of your issues, when it does so effectively, everyone complains. you can’t always tell if your issue is serious or not.

17. My GP triage form automatically flags any concerning symptoms and tells you to call 999.

18. People are idiots sadly. No matter how many times you plaster DO NOT USE THIS FORM IF YOU HAVE CHEST PAINS, ARE VOMITING BLOOD ETC ETC’ on a fo -they will. 

19. Because if you go anywhere urgent with it they turn you away, the hell do you want us to do!

20. I have had random pains in the left side of my chest for over a year now. I have made many urgent appointments with my GP for them to wave it off as asthma or muscle strain. The NHS is in a dire state at the moment and you feel pressured to understate the severity of your symptoms.

21. Maybe, and just hear me out here, _maybe_ if people could arrange an appointment at their GP surgery without having to play some kind of lottery for an hour in a phone queue, only to have to explain their life threatening symptoms to a receptionist who will then decide whether or not they can see an actual doctor (in a month) or have a phone conversation with a nurse practitioner at an awkward time next Thursday, maybe then this wouldn’t happen so much. Maybe.

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