Guest Guest66881 Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 Not so bad the mail at reporting news stories then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fisheys Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Each year something like 12 million NHS patients make an appointment with their GP and then don’t turn up (or cancel), costing the NHS and the taxpayer more than £160,000,000 per year. Nearly 7 million out patient appointments are also missed at an average cost of £108 per appointment. Potentially, every missed appointment could have been offered to someone else, and I guess that at least some of those who missed their first appointment will go on to book a second……that’s a lot of money churning with very little to show for it.:sad: Tx Simply charging £20 to see the GP which is lost if you do not turn up on time would end it overnight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fisheys Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 I phoned our local surgery earlier today - can't see our usual GP till 19th March. Over a two week wait! Can however, see a different GP tomorrow. Oh, I forgot to say, I live in Australia. Not out in the sticks but on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. When I was home on holiday in Hereford UK last year, I needed to see a Doctor. I went to a "walk-in" clinic and was seen after a 10 minute wait. I don't quite get this. If you are ill, you would want to see a Doctor, who has access to your records, or, if you aren't ill, why see a Doctor? I assume that the Doctor at the walk in clinic was not your usual GP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramot Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 I phoned our local surgery earlier today - can't see our usual GP till 19th March. Over a two week wait! Can however, see a different GP tomorrow. Oh, I forgot to say, I live in Australia. Not out in the sticks but on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. When I was home on holiday in Hereford UK last year, I needed to see a Doctor I went to a "walk-in" clinic and was seen after a 10 minute wait. I don't know where you live on the Sunshine Coast, but I have been here 11 years, and unless my usual Dr is away I have never had a problem, and I wouldn't have a problem seeing another Dr in the practice if it was urgent, as all my records are there. also there are 2, 7 day Dr's surgeries locally, to access a Dr at weekends, if close to Maroochydore or Kawana. Luckily I can't fault the medical system here so far. I even for the first time in my life had to call a Dr out in the middle of the night last year for me, and again have no complaints about the system. I think you were unlucky and hope it was a one off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kungfustu Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 more of your "sensationalizing" going on here.....calling your Dr's because you need to discuss malaria tablets for a planned trip overseas is not an emergency so no big deal in waiting a week.....however if you have something that needs medication, an infection or similar they will see you straight away hence the reception staff asking a few basic questions.....I have always seen a Dr on the same day of calling.....normally within 2 - 3 hours.....at weekends we have emergency Dr's available at walk-in-clinics so there is never an excuse not to see one on the same day if you really need too.....however I am sure some of our "want-away" migrants will come up with some outrageous tale of being snubbed by an already busting at the seams NHS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest51810 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 So you have to be a "want away migrant" if you say you have to wait a long time for a appointment? I wouldn't say I was one of them. I have to wait ages and that's just my experience. Obviously there's lots of other areas who don't but I do. Tbh I didn't even read the article, was just adding my own experience. Had a totally different experience with the dentist though, phoned yesterday and I got a appointment for 12 today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jac2011 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 I have to say I called the Dr for my husband at 8.15 and he has an appt for 11am, however I have just spent 3 months working in the emergency department (coincidently no longer called A&E to deter people away) who were overrun by around 50% of people who could have been seen by their GP. Apparently the GP's don't offer an apt or when they do see patients there skills of 'knowing everything but not being a master in anything' mean that they just send there patients to the emergency department anyway. So when you have a real problem and are waiting over your 4 hour waiting time, look around you and look at the reason you are waiting over 4 hours! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest 47403 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 So you have to be a "want away migrant" if you say you have to wait a long time for a appointment? I wouldn't say I was one of them. I have to wait ages and that's just my experience. Obviously there's lots of other areas who don't but I do. Tbh I didn't even read the article, was just adding my own experience. Had a totally different experience with the dentist though, phoned yesterday and I got a appointment for 12 today That's because you pay for the dentist lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpo1971 Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 So, my Bro rang today with tooth ache and they they said no appointment until May. Is that typical or what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kungfustu Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 So, my Bro rang today with tooth ache and they they said no appointment until May. Is that typical or what? May!......are you kidding.....I wouldnt expect an appointment untill at least July/August Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newjez Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 Millions of patients wait as long as three weeks to see their GP, a Daily Mail survey reveals today.Only one in three manages to secure a same-day appointment, despite Government promises to make such slots routinely available. One in five cannot get a consultation within seven days. The survey suggests that two million adults wait between two and three weeks to see a doctor and half a million suffer a delay of three or four weeks. Leading GPs say the figures reflect their struggle to meet the demands of a growing population with ever larger numbers of pensioners. And they are increasingly worried about late diagnosis of deadly illnesses such as cancer and lung disease. Maureen Baker, of the Royal College of GPs, said: ‘We do worry on patient safety grounds that access is becoming more of a problem. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2570597/Three-week-wait-doctor-Millions-patients-denied-prompt-appointment-GP.html I always get seen the same day. But I guess if you do have problems, then you can pay to see a doctor like you do in oz. The Tories will destroy the NHS if they get a chance though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andy Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 I have been in and out of Stoke Mandeville hospital for the last 3 weeks visiting my mother and can tell you that the hospital is a shambles, the care by a good percentage of the staff is shocking to see whether down to morale or just attitude I don't know but you really have to see it to believe it. We have had procedures cancelled on a Friday because there is nobody to carry it out over the weekend and when my mum was in so much pain after having her stomach drained were told by a nurse she would have to wait for a painkiller until "she had finished making the beds". She was also given some very bad news as to what was wrong with her while in a bed in a corridor in A+E then left there for a further 4 hours waiting for a bed while we all stood there like a load of lemons. I could right a book about her time so far there and it would be more like a horror story. I am not sensationalising this or saying it to be argumentative but it is straight from the horses mouth. Again absolutely shocking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kungfustu Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 I have been in and out of Stoke Mandeville hospital for the last 3 weeks visiting my mother and can tell you that the hospital is a shambles, the care by a good percentage of the staff is shocking to see whether down to morale or just attitude I don't know but you really have to see it to believe it. We have had procedures cancelled on a Friday because there is nobody to carry it out over the weekend and when my mum was in so much pain after having her stomach drained were told by a nurse she would have to wait for a painkiller until "she had finished making the beds". She was also given some very bad news as to what was wrong with her while in a bed in a corridor in A+E then left there for a further 4 hours waiting for a bed while we all stood there like a load of lemons. I could right a book about her time so far there and it would be more like a horror story. I am not sensationalising this or saying it to be argumentative but it is straight from the horses mouth. Again absolutely shocking. That is a real shame and its just not fair on the patient......you paid all your life into something and when you need a return its not up to standard....One of my customers has just been doagnosed with a brain tumour and experienced a similar thing.....they felt nothing was being done....shes been in hospitol now for 3 weeks with little progress although they did have a moan to the dr's and now things seem to be happening (according to her sister).....on the flip side we have had a brilliant experience with the NHS....my youngest boy was born with a facial deformity....hes 10 now and has had probably 8 - 10 ops....most recent was a bone graft from his hip into his top jaw....we have been seen by all the top consultants and have been really well looked after......My mum was run over by a skip lorry 10 years ago.....(its ok you can larf).....went under the front and came out the back.....(at slow speed).....she suffered serious crush injuries, pelvis, leg, arm etc etc (not a lot of height room under one of those).....the prop shaft ripped out the whole muscle in one of her legs.....luckily her head was ok....3 months in intensive care in an induced coma, both lungs punctured, ribs broken.....try resusitating someone with broken ribs!.....anyhow.....she had the best care you could have asked for in intensive care....3 months later she was woken up and was moved to a ward where she spent the next 9 months learning to walk again.....it wasnt such a nice experience there but shes alive and is extremely lucky.....she had about 27 pints of blood transfered through her whilst they were fixing her up on the first day.....so we are very grateful to the NHS and their staff.....even tho we know its not perfect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andy Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 That is a real shame and its just not fair on the patient......you paid all your life into something and when you need a return its not up to standard....One of my customers has just been doagnosed with a brain tumour and experienced a similar thing.....they felt nothing was being done....shes been in hospitol now for 3 weeks with little progress although they did have a moan to the dr's and now things seem to be happening (according to her sister).....on the flip side we have had a brilliant experience with the NHS....my youngest boy was born with a facial deformity....hes 10 now and has had probably 8 - 10 ops....most recent was a bone graft from his hip into his top jaw....we have been seen by all the top consultants and have been really well looked after......My mum was run over by a skip lorry 10 years ago.....(its ok you can larf).....went under the front and came out the back.....(at slow speed).....she suffered serious crush injuries, pelvis, leg, arm etc etc (not a lot of height room under one of those).....the prop shaft ripped out the whole muscle in one of her legs.....luckily her head was ok....3 months in intensive care in an induced coma, both lungs punctured, ribs broken.....try resusitating someone with broken ribs!.....anyhow.....she had the best care you could have asked for in intensive care....3 months later she was woken up and was moved to a ward where she spent the next 9 months learning to walk again.....it wasnt such a nice experience there but shes alive and is extremely lucky.....she had about 27 pints of blood transfered through her whilst they were fixing her up on the first day.....so we are very grateful to the NHS and their staff.....even tho we know its not perfect. I am certainly not saying that the NHS has not been good in the past as your post clearly shows and i am sure that there are many happy endings going on as we speak but like you i can only tell it how i have found it, to be honest SM hospital has not got a good reputation and has been in special measures but the treatment we have had has been unacceptable. We are hoping that she will be moved to a specialist hospital in Oxford in the next week or so and if we get good treatment there i will be the first to state it for sure. By the way its great that you have had such good treatment and i wish your boy and mum all the best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest51810 Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Wow kungfustu - your poor mother, that sounds horrible! I think your right, everybody has mixed experiences. Sometimes it's amazing and sometimes not so much. Last time I was in hospital I had a mixed experience. When I broke my wrist everybody was great, I went to the hospital and only waited for 40 mins and was in and out asap. Next appointment they checked it and the doctor said "did someone tell you last time that your probably going to need a operation on it" I was like "err nobody mentioned it, they just acted like it was a normal break". Anyway the operation was booked in really fast. Went in for the operation and was told I might have to wait ages. Waited till late afternoon and then was told that there were some emergencies so would have to wait a little while but there might be the chance that i would have to come back. Waited till almost 6pm that night before I was told to just go home and come back next day. I wasn't impressed at all lol was so starving and Dave had took a day off because I needed someone to take me home. Next day was much better, had the operation in the morning and the staff were nice. Except one nurse when I was waking up from the operation. She tried to get me to leave earlier than I was ready to and the result was I ended up being really sick :eek: She was terrible, so impatient. She seemed like one of those people you wonder why is a nurse. Maybe she was just having a bad day, who knows! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kungfustu Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 My boy has been treated by Tim Goodacre, a very well known plastic surgeon, he had a cpl of ops in Perth and they all new Tim Goodacre and said what a top surgeon he is, we have been lucky because we have seen all the top surgeons and not their consultants. He had his first op at 8 weeks old in the old John Radcliff hospitol which you probably know is a very old delapidated building, we now go to the new super modern John Radcliff which is state of the art and a fantastic building. My mums care in intensive care was second to none, however I touched on her ward care, this was not good, she was bed bound for 6 months and caught MRSA which meant she was isolated and attended to last everyday in attempts to stop the virus spreading.....she often lay in her own s?$t for hours, the staff gave her morphine for too long and she started hallucinating and eventually had to go cold turkey.....all in all a very 2 sided experience. The problem today is money....they have to make decisions on where this money goes and sadly younger people take priority which is wrong.....but when a choice has to be made what can they do. I think my customers care I mentioned earlier with the brain tumour is suffering because of the cuts in finance.....Hopefully your mum will get moved somewhere different and get a better level of care which is what she is entitled too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterJa Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 Unfortunately have first hand experience with this my doctor is always up to 3 weeks to get an appointment even when you call up at 8am in the morning to 'try' and get one of those appointments that are suppose to be left for urgent appointments. Have had to take my daughter down to A&E in the past when I couldn't get a doctors appointment for her for 3 weeks (on two occasions once she wasn't able to keep anything down not even water and another occasion when she was extremely dizzy and had a rash). Both the doctors surgery's in my local area are the same Mine is a 3 week wait. When my kids are ill they recommend a&e... which drives the local a&e crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterJa Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 I think the problem with the nhs is it is a political football. No party dares change it in any way as the opposition will crucify them no matter how good the changes are (presuming any politician has every suggested a good change). Whoever said the nhs is the closest thing we have to a religion in this country was bang on. And whoever says "it's free" has never paid UK tax. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinsmom65 Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 I don't think the wait time to see a doctor is restricted just to the UK. In Canada we have a doctors shortage, and there people who can't even get their own doctor and have to relie on walk in clincs or emerg. However, give me the type of health care, the UK, Canada and Australia offer, over the US system any day of the week. I for one don't mind paying taxes for universal health care. Cheers Karen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Addy Posted March 9, 2014 Share Posted March 9, 2014 We moved house two miles up the road in the UK and were told we had to change Dr's practices. We had excellent care at the previous surgery which had an open house every morning where you sat and waited to see a Dr and appointments in the afternoon and evening. We only did the sit and wait if we had to see a Dr that day. Otherwise we waited 3-5 days for an appointment which was OK as the open house was always available if you couldn't wait. The surgery to which we were moved was terrible. Appointments were a three week wait and no open house. There were a couple of slots for emergencies, but not nearly enough. One day my 3 year old was very ill with an ear infection and I was told to take her to A&E as they couldn't see her for 3 weeks. I hated doing this as in my mind the GP is there to look after things like ear infections and A&E is for things the GP can't treat. To make matters worse the receptionists were used to give out medical results as the Drs were too busy and thought they were Dr's by proxy. I had a serious condition missed in this way. I didn't realise until I had routine tests here in Aus and it was picked up. I checked my old results (I got a copy of my UK records to bring to Aus) and there were the same results 2 years previously in the UK. I am a supporter of the NHS and think lack of funding and proper regulation of GP surgeries is to blame for inadequate GP provision. Surely in areas with too few GPs a system can be put in place to increase numbers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul1Perth Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 I did find it marginally better in Australia but so far here have always seen a Dr. the same day when I needed to - our surgery has a system where a nurse will call you back and if they agree you need to see a Dr. then an appointment is 'found' - it won't be with a specific Dr. though. If needs be I use NHS 24 and then you can pretty much guarantee you will be seen immediately. Of course in Australia I was paying around $30 per consultation and for prescriptions on top of that. Why do you say "of course" LR? Our doctor bulk bills, we've never not had an appointment on the same day if we ring. He somehow manages to squeeze us in. We live across the road from his surgery so that might have something to do with it I guess. Not that we have to go lots. If we are really desperate there is a walk in surgery, with a few doctors about 5 minutes drive away. They also bulk bill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul1Perth Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 I don't even mind waiting a week but I think three weeks is a bit extreme even if it's not anything too serious If you're really sick Stacey a day is too long. You might have spread some serious disease and gotten even sicker in that time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul1Perth Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 So you have to be a "want away migrant" if you say you have to wait a long time for a appointment? I wouldn't say I was one of them. I have to wait ages and that's just my experience. Obviously there's lots of other areas who don't but I do. Tbh I didn't even read the article, was just adding my own experience. Had a totally different experience with the dentist though, phoned yesterday and I got a appointment for 12 today Let's hope it's a bit better in the Isle of Wight Stacey, probably will be to be honest, bit more money down there. With a bit of luck you won't need a doctor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Pom Queen Posted March 10, 2014 Share Posted March 10, 2014 I phoned our local surgery earlier today - can't see our usual GP till 19th March. Over a two week wait! Can however, see a different GP tomorrow. Oh, I forgot to say, I live in Australia. Not out in the sticks but on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. When I was home on holiday in Hereford UK last year, I needed to see a Doctor. I went to a "walk-in" clinic and was seen after a 10 minute wait. Maybe your Dr is away. Although I know my own GP when I first moved up here use to have a waiting list of 2 weeks because he is really popular, I could however have seen any Dr in the clinic the same day. My GP is lovely and is very caring, to caring although I think I keep him in work so that's probably why, I call up and even the receptionist knows who I am without me saying my name and she fits me in within the hour if not immediately. If I am to ill to get to the Dr I call the 24 hour line and the Dr comes out within 30 minutes and that is bulk billed. So no cost at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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