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[CLKD]

Too many cooks in our NHS  .  Apparently GPs were going 2 B told that they could no longer offer patients face2face appts..  Appointments that the general public pay for? ! ?

NHS England has now ordered that the idea be abolished.  People power!!!  Can U imagine that stopping face2face appts. were being considered? 

The Daily Telegraph Friday 14th May 2021. Telling GPs via the back door too!

[Ju Ju]

It’s down to triaging. Sometimes you have to dress it up. I saw a doctor face to face during lockdown. Initially I was told I would have to wait a few days, until I said I had breathing difficulties, so should I go to A&E if things deteriorated further? I have asthma, but at the time, I wasn’t scared, but knew I needed more meds to help. I got an appointment within an hour and sent off for blood tests as well. Phone follow up, which was appropriate. I do think there is a place for phone appointments, but the triaging worries me. If you feel really rough, you can’t fight your corner.

[Penguin99]

My husband had a really bad ear infection and needed antibiotics,  phoned docs and was told nothing they can do ring 111, so we did, after the usual unrelated questions and the automated covid recording we finally got through. She then said she would contact the surgery and the doctor would call within a couple of hours. Our doctor phoned and told him to come to the surgery and did him a prescription,  honestly what a waste of time, I offered to email a picture and for doc to do prescription but a " pathway" had to be followed

[sheila99]

I quite like the phone appointments, we get them the same day and it saves sitting in the surgery for an hour as a f2f is inevitably late. There are obviously times that need f2f so I am optimistically assuming it will be available. We have an ooh nurse too who I've seen a couple of times, she can prescribe antibiotics and  saves the wait for a gp appointment.

[Harmony]

It's become almost impossible to even speak to a doctor at my surgery, never mind actually see one! 😬 I need to speak to a doctor for my routine medication review, I'm nearly out of it. You're supposed to ring from 8am for a same day appointment. Not everyone can ring at 8am, so what are they supposed to do! You can easily be on hold for up to an hour, and you often get cut off at some point. If by some miracle you actually get to speak to a receptionist, all the appointments have probably gone. It wouldn't be so bad if you could get a non urgent appointment in advance (which had been a 5-6 week wait pre covid), but they're not offering those any more. So at my surgery, we're virtually being denied access to healthcare, it's appalling. I want to make a complaint about it to the governing body, but am not sure how to go about this.

My niece works at a GP's surgery, and she said months ago that they're not planning to go back to face to face appointments post covid (presumably unless a doctor needs to examine you). I think this is what the surgery wants to do, not what they've been told to do.

[CherrySG]

My surgery rarely did face-to-face appointments even before Covid. It's getting really hard to get help these days.

[Katejo]

It's become almost impossible to even speak to a doctor at my surgery, never mind actually see one! 😬 I need to speak to a doctor for my routine medication review, I'm nearly out of it. You're supposed to ring from 8am for a same day appointment. Not everyone can ring at 8am, so what are they supposed to do! You can easily be on hold for up to an hour, and you often get cut off at some point. If by some miracle you actually get to speak to a receptionist, all the appointments have probably gone. It wouldn't be so bad if you could get a non urgent appointment in advance (which had been a 5-6 week wait pre covid), but they're not offering those any more. So at my surgery, we're virtually being denied access to healthcare, it's appalling. I want to make a complaint about it to the governing body, but am not sure how to go about this.

My niece works at a GP's surgery, and she said months ago that they're not planning to go back to face to face appointments post covid (presumably unless a doctor needs to examine you). I think this is what the surgery wants to do, not what they've been told to do.

Much the same at mine. I haven't seen any GP or hospital doctor face to face for over a year except when I had my hysteroscopy at a private hospital a year ago. I detest phone appointments. I can see no advantages at all and lots of bad points.

[CLKD]

Harmony - that 'rule' has been relaxed due to the public kicking up, the point of this thread.  How NHS England was going to make it illegal to see a GP F2F that all appts had to be via ZOOM.  But the public SPOKE 

We pay for the NHS!

[sheila99]

And how did they think a 90 year old who can't work a mobile phone is going manage zoom??

[CLKD]

They don't think - that's the problem.  NHS England should be ashamed.  Too many organisations trying to get one over the others .......

[CLKD]

I go to the top of our stairs 

I could of course get DH to A&E but his knee isn't an emergency.  He would require an Ambulance as I no longer drive in towns. 

The earliest phone appt with our GP is next Friday  .  What DH needs to know is whether he should get the affected joint X-rayed to find out if there is damage, B4 going to a private physiotherapist.  He is sending an e-mail to the GP 2 C if that will hurry up the process.   

So the GP is in effect, dealing twice with the same patient, if he/she needs 2 B seen.  Up until C-19 shut downs, we could get a face2face appt within 24 hours 

[Ju Ju]

I have managed to get both face to face and phone consultation within an hour or two. The face to face was during lock down. But it was for breathing issues due to asthma. The second was for stress. I started crying while talking to the receptionist. Not intentional. Must have thought I was suicidal! Getting to talk to my own doctor is impossible though. Advise was to ring in a fortnight to see if there were any appointments.

I have been hearing that there is a physiotherapist at the surgery for the first time. Apparently very attractive and young (40ish) - report by a group of ladies late 70s, 80ish!  And getting seen isn’t difficult. They were happy with the help they received. Some were given appropriate exercises via phone consultation. Good if this the way surgeries invest.

I’m ok for some consultations to be via the phone, but others do need to be face to face. It depends on the problem.

[CLKD]

DH typed a letter to our GP with salient points about his knee injury, we gently wandered to the Surgery - a 10 mins. walk - to hand it in.  Whether it will be read B4 his scheduled phone appt next Friday remains 2 B seen!

[Roobee]

My daughter ended up in hospital with an awful ear infection because she could only talk to a GP on the phone, 3 times over 2 weeks I might add! I get the first one may be ok to be by phone, but if someone keeps ringing in awful pain you would think they would say come in. You can’t exactly see inside an ear by phone or zoom can you!
I’m sure the system works for some things but it seems they are taking the P***!

[CLKD]

When does this become medical negligence  . We looked on the surgery web-site, there is 1 partner and a part-time GP.