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Gps To Blame For Hospital Crisis
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Ever since Blair gave GPs a big pay rise to do less, we have had crisis after crisis in hospital, especially A&E
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Answers
"In fact the surgery does stay open late one night a week - but this only happened after GP pay went up." Mine did the opposite. It has never opened in the evenings and when they were all awarded silly money they closed for half a day on Thursdays.
17:21 Thu 12th Jan 2017
I have a pal, aged 71, who is in good health and indeed still able to do a little private work when he feels like it. He is an excellent painter and decorator. A few weeks before Christmas he developed this nasty cough and chest infection that has been so prevalent this winter. He had to wait 5 days before he could get a surgery appointment, and was sent home and told to get himself some cough medicine. After 4 weeks and a very unhappy Christmas and New Year, he woke up last weekend with severe chest pains on his left side and barely able to breathe. His wife was refused a call out during after surgery hours and told to ring back on Mon AM where they would check if there was an appointment "slot". On doing so she was told no appointments available for 5 days. The pain by now was unbearable so she rang an ambulance. The ambulance took him to A&E where after a 3 hour wait he was given exemplary treatment and diagnosed with torn chest muscles due to the severe cough he had endured and in real danger of developing pneumonia. After hearing the tale of woe the hospital consultant rang his GP who refused to come to the phone. The consultant apparently went bananas and pulled rank insisting that the doctor came to the phone, where he was told in no uncertain terms that this patient needed an immediate appointment and a prescription. My pal was taken to the surgery where a very contrite GP did a proper examination (as should have happened weeks before) and prescribed painkillers and antibiotics. 4 days later he is now once again on the mend and feeling much better. He is not a complainer or feel sorry for himself merchant, but a genuine good egg, and family man. It infuriates me.
Good question hidden there Gromit.....why would the doctors start to behave in this way now? Is it precisely because there is a Conservative Government, and they are using our NHS as their own political weapon? I have never known surgeries to be "closed for training" for an afternoon every week, have you?
“My doctors surgery is open 6 days a week. Two of those days they are open until 8pm.”
Lucky old you. Mine is open from 8:30am to 6pm four days a week and shuts from 12:30pm to 2pm for lunch. Doctors’ appointments are 9am to noon and 2:30pm to 5pm. On the fifth day (Thursday) it shuts at 12:30pm entirely.
If I phoned my doctor (a) I’d be very fortunate too get through and (b) I’d be told to come in (appointments available in three to four weeks). But don’t come in if you’ve got a cold, cough, sore throat or, in short, if you’re ill.
The practice has just spent the thick end of a million pounds on a rebuild (most of which was funded by the NHS with just a token amount slung in by the “partners”). But still the same hours prevail, still they will not take a blood sample for analysis (it’s two buses from where I live to a hospital that will. No fun if you’ve had to fast overnight, get two buses and then queue up for two hours).
It’s an utter disgrace. GP practices should be run under a mandate from the Department of Health which stipulates hours of opening and services to be provided and all GPs should be salaried employees of the NHS. Those standards should apply across the country and should not vary depending on where you live. They should not be run on the whim of a few chancers who see the opportunity to make a very handsome salary for very little work. In most cases GPs are unnecessary anyway. In my experience I’ve usually been prescribed a packet of asprins with the advice “Take these. If you’re not dead or better in a fortnight, come back and I’ll send you to see somebody who knows what they’re talking about.” Better to direct me to a website with the headings “Guts, Lungs, Knees, Elbows, etc. Click here for the contact details of people who know about these things.”
if my experience is anything to go by It’s little wonder that people are pitching up at hospitals when they are ill. I certainly cannot depend on my GP’s services to sort me out should I need any attention. Anything trivial cures itself before I can get an appointment and anything worse will deteriorate long before they agree to see me. Loadsamoney for very little old rope.
Lucky old you. Mine is open from 8:30am to 6pm four days a week and shuts from 12:30pm to 2pm for lunch. Doctors’ appointments are 9am to noon and 2:30pm to 5pm. On the fifth day (Thursday) it shuts at 12:30pm entirely.
If I phoned my doctor (a) I’d be very fortunate too get through and (b) I’d be told to come in (appointments available in three to four weeks). But don’t come in if you’ve got a cold, cough, sore throat or, in short, if you’re ill.
The practice has just spent the thick end of a million pounds on a rebuild (most of which was funded by the NHS with just a token amount slung in by the “partners”). But still the same hours prevail, still they will not take a blood sample for analysis (it’s two buses from where I live to a hospital that will. No fun if you’ve had to fast overnight, get two buses and then queue up for two hours).
It’s an utter disgrace. GP practices should be run under a mandate from the Department of Health which stipulates hours of opening and services to be provided and all GPs should be salaried employees of the NHS. Those standards should apply across the country and should not vary depending on where you live. They should not be run on the whim of a few chancers who see the opportunity to make a very handsome salary for very little work. In most cases GPs are unnecessary anyway. In my experience I’ve usually been prescribed a packet of asprins with the advice “Take these. If you’re not dead or better in a fortnight, come back and I’ll send you to see somebody who knows what they’re talking about.” Better to direct me to a website with the headings “Guts, Lungs, Knees, Elbows, etc. Click here for the contact details of people who know about these things.”
if my experience is anything to go by It’s little wonder that people are pitching up at hospitals when they are ill. I certainly cannot depend on my GP’s services to sort me out should I need any attention. Anything trivial cures itself before I can get an appointment and anything worse will deteriorate long before they agree to see me. Loadsamoney for very little old rope.
Gromit, the GP contract started failing pretty quick in some areas and has got steadily worse. Some GP's however are excellent, such as my current one. My previous one was the opposite.
As for you comment about blaming Blair being comical, would you exect the Tories to take away the contract and all the money given? What exactly do you think would happen?
As for you comment about blaming Blair being comical, would you exect the Tories to take away the contract and all the money given? What exactly do you think would happen?
//The GPs contract came in 13 years ago, and all was fine until faily recently. It is this Governments poor management that have hastened the NHS's woe. //
Can you believe the barefaced cheek of it. I am asked to provide the beloved stats(beloved,when they can be twisted to suit some warped ideal). But Gromit feels is justified in making sweeping statements such as this without providing...........errr stats. Now all the Doctors are Tory voters, again no backup stats. Perhaps all these Tory doctors are the ones schooled and trained outside the UK rather than the ones who have been brainwashed in our "system". Then again I have no stats. (I have my suspicions though)
Can you believe the barefaced cheek of it. I am asked to provide the beloved stats(beloved,when they can be twisted to suit some warped ideal). But Gromit feels is justified in making sweeping statements such as this without providing...........errr stats. Now all the Doctors are Tory voters, again no backup stats. Perhaps all these Tory doctors are the ones schooled and trained outside the UK rather than the ones who have been brainwashed in our "system". Then again I have no stats. (I have my suspicions though)
Even the Tories recognise Labour made a big mistake in 2004
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Gromit, this isn't something that's happened under the Torys. Remember the mantra "3 days to save the NHS"? Blair threw money at the NHS and it didn't make make any difference. There were still winter crises and after the GP contracts came in many more people were turning up at A&E because there was no other choice outside normal surgery times. I worked for several Consultants at the time and all were horrified by the rise of middle managers who sometimes had the power to overrule Consultants clinical decisions. The money did not filter down to the actual treatment. Gordon Brown also laid smoke screens about how much money he was putting in to the NHS with double and triple accounting and Blair thought that announcing "Soundbites" and "initiatives", things would always get better. He did not understand the NHS and didn't want to know. Things have gone downhill since then.
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//Since the deal started in 2004, average GP pay has topped the £100,000 barrier//
So down to Labour then.
Gromit
"The GPs contract came in 13 years ago, and all was fine until faily recently."
Please tell me you are joking...."fairly recently?" What does that mean?" Stats from the NHS are unreliable in my opinion, so just ask someone who has worked in the NHS for how long it had been going downhill.......in my opinion for about 40 years and that is based on personal experience of the health service.
"I would assume doctors are mainly Conservative voters."
In my opinion Doctors are mainly Labour voters.....certainly GP's.
GP's certainly play a major part in this NHS "crisis".....as mentioned above, in the Brown Labour Government the BMA could believe their eyes when they were given a pay rise for less work.........
Also in the past 20 years Medical Schools have been admitting more female students who when they qualify go into GP , then have their babies (taking more time off) and then finally retiring early. This is not the fault of any Government.
Generally speaking,GP's are not giving a service for which they are paid and have to bear much of the responsibility of this problem in the NHS.
The Daily Mail article written by the Consultant is quite correct.
"The GPs contract came in 13 years ago, and all was fine until faily recently."
Please tell me you are joking...."fairly recently?" What does that mean?" Stats from the NHS are unreliable in my opinion, so just ask someone who has worked in the NHS for how long it had been going downhill.......in my opinion for about 40 years and that is based on personal experience of the health service.
"I would assume doctors are mainly Conservative voters."
In my opinion Doctors are mainly Labour voters.....certainly GP's.
GP's certainly play a major part in this NHS "crisis".....as mentioned above, in the Brown Labour Government the BMA could believe their eyes when they were given a pay rise for less work.........
Also in the past 20 years Medical Schools have been admitting more female students who when they qualify go into GP , then have their babies (taking more time off) and then finally retiring early. This is not the fault of any Government.
Generally speaking,GP's are not giving a service for which they are paid and have to bear much of the responsibility of this problem in the NHS.
The Daily Mail article written by the Consultant is quite correct.
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