Country going to shit due to broken political system. We’ve seen this one already.
It amazes me that so few in the media and population draw a link between the fact we have basically had a single party in power for almost 15 years (apologies to Mr Cleggbook) and the fact this nation hasn’t improved in any facet in a decade. It’s absurd.
Receptionist: “Hello, [redacted] medical centre how can I help you?”
Patient: “Yeah I’ve had this cough for a couple of weeks and it doesn’t seem to be going away, and now I’m getting this pain in the centre of my ribs”
Receptionist: “You’ll have to call back tomorrow, the appointment book opens at 8:30 and closes at 9:00”
Patient: “But I’ll be doing the school run at that time”
Receptionist: “That’s the procedure at this practice”
Patient: “Do what should I do then?”
Receptionist: “You can go to A&E”
Patient: “Does it really count as an emergency though? You’re telling me to call back tomorrow so it can’t really be, can it?”
Receptionist: “Is there anything else I can help you with today? We have a number of patients on palliative care and need to keep the phone lines available”
Patient: (after hanging up) “You might have one more soon, arse”
It’d be interesting to know how many of the appointments that were taken were for illnesses that don’t require seeing a nurse or doctor.
I wonder if there could be a correlation between lack of trained doctors in the GP field and a lack of appointments.
Shocking concept I know.
access to mental health services can be even harder, which seems like it could be an issue given current economic circumstances!
i know myself i was referred (urgently) back in June, finally had the triage appointment in October but they decided my problems were a bit outside that services remit, so they shuffled me to a different service… had that triage appointment this month but i’d actually recovered a little since then so was no longer eligible for their services… referred back to the previous provider and they rejected it so no mental health help for me!
not entirely relevant i know but needed the rant, it amazes me how little help there is available when there’s so many posters encouraging MH awareness, it’s window dressing nothing more ><
I had surgery a year or two ago because I couldn’t get a gp appointment. Small infection became massive infection became a&e became 20 or so appointments at the hospital and finally surgery. So glad my gp won’t take phonecalls at all. Cost the NHS a ton in the end.
Funny coincidence how there’s a shortage of GPs whilst the government has spent 10 years making their workload higher and pay lower
YouGov and its Tory owners running polls that they can use to manipulate the public into supporting the piecemeal privatisation of the NHS? Say it ain’t so!
Fucking receptionists are on commission for turning people away.
“Sorry, you’re not ill enough to see a GP. Fuck off.”
“Sorry, you’re too ill to see a GP. Go to hospital.”
Maybe I’m just lucky, but I always get an appointment when calling up my GP. Then even when I’m not at home and it’s urgent there are drop in clinics at places like boots where I can turn up an see a GP.
So is this 50% figure, more about people not trying to see a GP, rather than there being limited availability?
My GP offers non-urgent phone appointments. For normal appointments you phone in between 8:30am and 10am and hope for the best. For non-urgent appointments you phone any time outside this and they book it for a week or two later.
I have made non-urgent appointments twice now and on both occasions my GP has failed to call.
Eh, we were warned. If we didn’t want it, we shouldn’t have voted Conservative repeatedly.
Never mind a gp what about a dentist? I have to sell my kidney and my cousin just to get my teeth fixed it’s not looking good
The general strategy of this government is to quietly run all public services into the ground, leaving people with no alternative than to go private. It’s less obtrusive than publicly stating that you intend to privitise everything.
So here is my experience:
I haven’t been to the doctor for something like 8 years. I recently tried to book an appointment to discuss something which isn’t particularly urgent. I called at about 3pm to try and book something in the coming weeks, but I was told that’s not possible to do and was advised to call at 8am to book on the day. This is a bit of an issue because of work, I can certainly schedule something in for the future but it’s not viable to book a day off last minute in the hope that I will be able to get an appointment.
Rgardless, the next day I rang at 8am. Constant busy tone, I called back a few times and eventually found myself in some sort of automated queue at about 8:02. After maybe 10 or 15 seconds I was informed that there were no more appointments available. I tried booking both through the NHS app and the website of the surgery, but there were absolutely no options to book anything. What the hell am I meant to do?
The very next time that I will likely try to address what is currently a minor issue will be either A&E because its now developed into a disastrous issue, or it will have killed me because a number of years will have passed and its developed into a disastrous issue. Not quite sure what the fuck I’m meant to do.
If anyone would like to talk about what they’re going through, or simply to have a sympathetic ear, please reach out and send me a message.
The NHS is a joke…clap all you want, but it is wank.
I had COVID in mid Feb. I recovered and needed to see the GP for a fit note for work. First appt I could get is in April. It took 1 and a half hours to get through to the Doctor’s receptionist.
I’m not sick, I feel like I’m wasting their time but I need it. There must be a better system than that.
The last time I _needed_ a GP, I ended up going to Urgent Care instead. Three times, with the third seeing me referred straight to A&E as soon as the nurse took a look at me. Quinsy requires the attention of an ENT doc, after all.
That third visit to UC was a Saturday evening, and so would have happened anyway. But the first two? Weekday visits for tonsillitis that I’d already been trying to self medicate for a week prior to seeking medical assistance. By the time I got through, all appointments were gone.
Yeah it’s the second one.
Called 111, they referred us to the fucking Asda pharmacy after their shitty script completely ignored an important symptom. Asda pharmacy was ‘surprised we had been referred to them’ and told us to contact our GP. GP had us fill out a triage form which would be reviewed within 2 days.
It’s been an absolute mess this year, the wheels have well and truly fallen off
Dentists also. My crown broke off in November, and my appointment is at the end of April! Fucking ridiculous.
I injured my knee 7 weeks ago and only just had my appointment today, I kept putting it off because I didn’t want to put strain on the gp but when I finally booked one the earliest appointment was 2 weeks away.
In the end the Dr pretty much said that the injury healed itself because it took me so long to go, luckily I only bruised the tendon and didn’t damage the knee cap so now I just have to do physio exercises to get the muscles to hold my kneecap in place properly again.
I tried to get an in person appointment with a GP for a skin condition whose cause I already knew. They told me they couldn’t see me in person but suggested I send a photo, and on the back of that photo told me that it wasn’t what I thought and in fact it was probably nothing at all (I had watched this condition develop over the course of years and knew exactly what it was), but that I should treat it as the thing I thought it was (I had already told them regular treatments were not effective), but actually nothing was wrong, but even if it was what I said it was or anything else there was no chance I’d ever get to the top of the waitlist for a dermatologist and in fact probably wouldn’t get on the list at all because it is basically a minimum severity of skin cancer due to oversubscription.
All this cured me of was a desire to ever talk to my GP again, though after about 6 years of gradually getting worse the condition did unexpectedly cure itself entirely over the course of a couple of months, so that was nice.
Yep, that’s my current situation. Trying to book with my usual GP. I’ve tried booking with random ones but things got confusing so I stick to one person now.
I check the electronic appointments system every day, nothing is available. They don’t let you access appointments beyond 2 weeks
I phone up, they say we can’t book appointments in advance. What? Since when did that become a thing?
The GP practice I’m registered with are shockingly bad. They’re making a ton of profit while they provide an utterly shit service to their patients.
I’d be here all day explaining how they repeatedly and relentlessly fuck up my healthcare. Once when I complained that they need to invest in a better phone system so patients are left on hold for hours, they said with a straight face they couldn’t afford to. When I mentinoed that I was literally looking at their company house filing with £660k in the bank, they didn’t have anything to say.
27 comments
Country going to shit due to broken political system. We’ve seen this one already.
It amazes me that so few in the media and population draw a link between the fact we have basically had a single party in power for almost 15 years (apologies to Mr Cleggbook) and the fact this nation hasn’t improved in any facet in a decade. It’s absurd.
Receptionist: “Hello, [redacted] medical centre how can I help you?”
Patient: “Yeah I’ve had this cough for a couple of weeks and it doesn’t seem to be going away, and now I’m getting this pain in the centre of my ribs”
Receptionist: “You’ll have to call back tomorrow, the appointment book opens at 8:30 and closes at 9:00”
Patient: “But I’ll be doing the school run at that time”
Receptionist: “That’s the procedure at this practice”
Patient: “Do what should I do then?”
Receptionist: “You can go to A&E”
Patient: “Does it really count as an emergency though? You’re telling me to call back tomorrow so it can’t really be, can it?”
Receptionist: “Is there anything else I can help you with today? We have a number of patients on palliative care and need to keep the phone lines available”
Patient: (after hanging up) “You might have one more soon, arse”
It’d be interesting to know how many of the appointments that were taken were for illnesses that don’t require seeing a nurse or doctor.
I wonder if there could be a correlation between lack of trained doctors in the GP field and a lack of appointments.
Shocking concept I know.
access to mental health services can be even harder, which seems like it could be an issue given current economic circumstances!
i know myself i was referred (urgently) back in June, finally had the triage appointment in October but they decided my problems were a bit outside that services remit, so they shuffled me to a different service… had that triage appointment this month but i’d actually recovered a little since then so was no longer eligible for their services… referred back to the previous provider and they rejected it so no mental health help for me!
not entirely relevant i know but needed the rant, it amazes me how little help there is available when there’s so many posters encouraging MH awareness, it’s window dressing nothing more ><
I had surgery a year or two ago because I couldn’t get a gp appointment. Small infection became massive infection became a&e became 20 or so appointments at the hospital and finally surgery. So glad my gp won’t take phonecalls at all. Cost the NHS a ton in the end.
Funny coincidence how there’s a shortage of GPs whilst the government has spent 10 years making their workload higher and pay lower
YouGov and its Tory owners running polls that they can use to manipulate the public into supporting the piecemeal privatisation of the NHS? Say it ain’t so!
Fucking receptionists are on commission for turning people away.
“Sorry, you’re not ill enough to see a GP. Fuck off.”
“Sorry, you’re too ill to see a GP. Go to hospital.”
Maybe I’m just lucky, but I always get an appointment when calling up my GP. Then even when I’m not at home and it’s urgent there are drop in clinics at places like boots where I can turn up an see a GP.
So is this 50% figure, more about people not trying to see a GP, rather than there being limited availability?
My GP offers non-urgent phone appointments. For normal appointments you phone in between 8:30am and 10am and hope for the best. For non-urgent appointments you phone any time outside this and they book it for a week or two later.
I have made non-urgent appointments twice now and on both occasions my GP has failed to call.
Eh, we were warned. If we didn’t want it, we shouldn’t have voted Conservative repeatedly.
Never mind a gp what about a dentist? I have to sell my kidney and my cousin just to get my teeth fixed it’s not looking good
The general strategy of this government is to quietly run all public services into the ground, leaving people with no alternative than to go private. It’s less obtrusive than publicly stating that you intend to privitise everything.
So here is my experience:
I haven’t been to the doctor for something like 8 years. I recently tried to book an appointment to discuss something which isn’t particularly urgent. I called at about 3pm to try and book something in the coming weeks, but I was told that’s not possible to do and was advised to call at 8am to book on the day. This is a bit of an issue because of work, I can certainly schedule something in for the future but it’s not viable to book a day off last minute in the hope that I will be able to get an appointment.
Rgardless, the next day I rang at 8am. Constant busy tone, I called back a few times and eventually found myself in some sort of automated queue at about 8:02. After maybe 10 or 15 seconds I was informed that there were no more appointments available. I tried booking both through the NHS app and the website of the surgery, but there were absolutely no options to book anything. What the hell am I meant to do?
The very next time that I will likely try to address what is currently a minor issue will be either A&E because its now developed into a disastrous issue, or it will have killed me because a number of years will have passed and its developed into a disastrous issue. Not quite sure what the fuck I’m meant to do.
If anyone would like to talk about what they’re going through, or simply to have a sympathetic ear, please reach out and send me a message.
The NHS is a joke…clap all you want, but it is wank.
I had COVID in mid Feb. I recovered and needed to see the GP for a fit note for work. First appt I could get is in April. It took 1 and a half hours to get through to the Doctor’s receptionist.
I’m not sick, I feel like I’m wasting their time but I need it. There must be a better system than that.
The last time I _needed_ a GP, I ended up going to Urgent Care instead. Three times, with the third seeing me referred straight to A&E as soon as the nurse took a look at me. Quinsy requires the attention of an ENT doc, after all.
That third visit to UC was a Saturday evening, and so would have happened anyway. But the first two? Weekday visits for tonsillitis that I’d already been trying to self medicate for a week prior to seeking medical assistance. By the time I got through, all appointments were gone.
Yeah it’s the second one.
Called 111, they referred us to the fucking Asda pharmacy after their shitty script completely ignored an important symptom. Asda pharmacy was ‘surprised we had been referred to them’ and told us to contact our GP. GP had us fill out a triage form which would be reviewed within 2 days.
It’s been an absolute mess this year, the wheels have well and truly fallen off
Dentists also. My crown broke off in November, and my appointment is at the end of April! Fucking ridiculous.
I injured my knee 7 weeks ago and only just had my appointment today, I kept putting it off because I didn’t want to put strain on the gp but when I finally booked one the earliest appointment was 2 weeks away.
In the end the Dr pretty much said that the injury healed itself because it took me so long to go, luckily I only bruised the tendon and didn’t damage the knee cap so now I just have to do physio exercises to get the muscles to hold my kneecap in place properly again.
I tried to get an in person appointment with a GP for a skin condition whose cause I already knew. They told me they couldn’t see me in person but suggested I send a photo, and on the back of that photo told me that it wasn’t what I thought and in fact it was probably nothing at all (I had watched this condition develop over the course of years and knew exactly what it was), but that I should treat it as the thing I thought it was (I had already told them regular treatments were not effective), but actually nothing was wrong, but even if it was what I said it was or anything else there was no chance I’d ever get to the top of the waitlist for a dermatologist and in fact probably wouldn’t get on the list at all because it is basically a minimum severity of skin cancer due to oversubscription.
All this cured me of was a desire to ever talk to my GP again, though after about 6 years of gradually getting worse the condition did unexpectedly cure itself entirely over the course of a couple of months, so that was nice.
Yep, that’s my current situation. Trying to book with my usual GP. I’ve tried booking with random ones but things got confusing so I stick to one person now.
I check the electronic appointments system every day, nothing is available. They don’t let you access appointments beyond 2 weeks
I phone up, they say we can’t book appointments in advance. What? Since when did that become a thing?
The GP practice I’m registered with are shockingly bad. They’re making a ton of profit while they provide an utterly shit service to their patients.
I’d be here all day explaining how they repeatedly and relentlessly fuck up my healthcare. Once when I complained that they need to invest in a better phone system so patients are left on hold for hours, they said with a straight face they couldn’t afford to. When I mentinoed that I was literally looking at their company house filing with £660k in the bank, they didn’t have anything to say.