GPs at ‘breaking point’ say they must cap appointments – but could it harm patients?

The whole NHS needs to be reworked and redone. At this point it’s not about money, although that will always be part of it, it’s now rotten to the core and needs to be gutted and reworked

You know what doesn’t affect this at all don’t you? Immigration.

Let’s have a look at some other possible explanations for this healthcare crisis: Russian bots, the far right, hurt feelings, Israel, the Tory’s, Andrew Tate, hate speech, Margaret Thatchers foreign policy in the 70’s, Boris Johnson, trans rights, Polands immigration policy, Donald Trump.

It cannot in any way be anything to do with immigration, and if you do make that claim then you are a Nazi and should be jailed for even writing it here.

/s

While I agree with most of the article, I’d just like to point out that them complaining about having to draw bloods for hospitals is a 110% horseshit thing to complain about in context.

They do have to draw some bloods for hospitals, meanwhile hospital labs handle ALL of their blood tests, deal with all the transport for said tests, and handle all the reporting, urgent results callouts and even handle their urgent patients after the surgeries have closed, usually from around 8pm til 9am on weekdays, and all weekend.

Their argument is with the government, GP’s do NOT want to throw shade at the hospitals, we do a huge amount of work for them, if I were to estimate around 3/4ths of my workload in the lab is GP work, the rest is for the hosptial.

Fewer patients per day means better quality safer care. It’s ludicrous the numbers of patients that GPs are expected to see per day currently, hence the high rate of burnout. The current 10 minute appointments are barely enough time to get some patients into the room, let alone pick apart complex issues.

Let’s get a few things straight .

– Your Gp is not the NHS, they are an independent provider contracted to the NHS

– This cap isn’t saying screw it , it’s not a strike , it’s literally doing no more than what they are contracted to do and to be able to do it safely.

– practices have been undertaking a great deal of free work , it’s unsustainable , it includes work that would have previously been the mandate of the hospital , but has now fallen to them.
E: there are a number of conditions they are seeing, or certain diagnostics which should be the remit of their services , it may involve particular respiratory conditions or specialist mental health input or prescribing /review . It may even be something like a condition I’ve suffered from all my life like ADHD, they aren’t funded to manage it and the condition isn’t funded enough to bring down multi year waiting lists which exist not just for children but adults as well

– costs have increased in the last 6 or more years , funding hasn’t met the demand .

– hospitals don’t get closed down because of running costs , but quite occasionally GP partners are faced with needing to shut their practice , or merge , in either direction it increases demand .

– if your practice is in an area with alot of deprivation, there will be more chronic illness , more patient contacts , and more health anxiety , which again leads to more health contacts , the funding received doesn’t differ much from an affluent practise . It’s not sustainable when it comes to funding.

– Before someone wants to come at me thinking I’m blaming hospitals , I’m not, this is an issue created by successive governments in one manner or another .

People find it easy to moan about their GP practice , but they’ll be more unhappy when their practice disappears . The attitudes here are the sorts of reasons why student doctors aren’t particularly enticed to become GP’s.

If you care about your GP practice , get involved with its patient participation group, understand the issues that actually impact it rather than hearsay, and become part of the solution .