GPs to start capping appointments in work-to-rule
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72vp774rp3o
Posted by ThisIsMyThrowaway241
GPs to start capping appointments in work-to-rule
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72vp774rp3o
Posted by ThisIsMyThrowaway241
25 Comments
>The union has told its members they can limit appointments to 25 a day – some GPs see over 40 at times.
Reminder that 25 is the level deemed “safe” by the BMA, so this should mean that those who do manage to see their GPs should get the level of service they deserve while managing the work load on GPs.
Thank God, I was in danger of getting a GP appointment before 2027 there for a second
Going from 0 appointments to 0 appointments, doesn’t really effect much.
For those thinking this is some kind of industrial action, it’s not.
From the other post on this:
>Working to rule is **not** industrial action.
>It’s simply doing the job you’ve been contracted for, and not working paid or unpaid overtime.
>I.E. a GP is contracted to work 9-6, with a 1 hour lunch break – so they start work at 9am, break for lunch at 12:30, return from lunch at 13:30, and go home at 18:00.
>Which is what they are actually paid for.
>What they **don’t** do, is come in at 8am to catch up on paperwork for an hour, or work through their lunch break, or stay late to work on paperwork or cram in a few extra patients, or go home, and work on paperwork from home for 4 hours.
>**It is literally doing the job they are paid for, just not doing more than they are paid for**
I don’t know how much my surgery was getting per COVID jab, but it was the only time they ever showed any interest in treating their patients. They seemed like a completely different operation.
This entire system of contracting external businesses to conduct what should be a core function of the NHS needs to go.
How do you set a fair scale for funding when every area has different needs, demographics and populations.
The anger is somewhat understandable in practices owned and operated by GP’s, but it’s becoming increasingly common for GP practices to be owned by private medical companies, who ought to have done the maths around funding before making a decision to purchase.
I suspect in 10 years time GPs will have gone the same way as dentists today.
Most will have gone private to make more money, and there will be vast deserts where there’s no access to ‘free’ appointments for miles. It will be normalised for everyone to go private and pay £50+ per appointment unless they want to queue for 6 months.
We’ll all still be paying the same amount in taxes for the NHS but many will resort to paying out hundreds of quid extra per month on top for private medical insurance.
Wes Streeting seems to be on the same page as the Tories with this model.
From the guardian
>One option is to limit the number of patients GPs will see each day to 25. They may choose to stop performing work they are not formally contracted to do, and they could ignore “rationing” restrictions by “prescribing whatever is in the patient’s best interest”.
I mean that all sounds brilliant
Couldn’t get an appointment anyway. Not to be blunt, but this won’t make a difference.
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Good.
With all the extra “Good will” they provide taken away. Work to the letter of their contract. Then the government may just pull their finger out and actually improve primary healthcare and not just use gimmicks that sound nice in the headlines.
One thing that could help is charging people for missed appointments and for people who make appointments for things the NHS has said not to bother the GP about for years. That’d stop a lot of the timewasters.
With this happening, it puts more pressure on A&E Departments. I work in A&E and we have a policy of not refusing people. Hence why we are overworked!
Around the place I live, GP Surgeries are closed Wednesday afternoons for training. Once again, this put pressure on the main hospitals A&E Department.
The pressures, just seem to be getting worse for A&E and I can understand why we are losing nurses. It’s relentless!
GP’s surgeries, just send everyone to A&E to be dealt with. Simple things that can be done by a GP, get passed over to us.
They need to take more responsibility of people’s care, instead of passing it over to us to deal with.
Here’s an idea, pay GP surgerys by appointments offered instead of by the number of patients on their books.
Why? Because payment by patients on the book incentivises minimising the number of GPs/appointments whole taking on as many patients as possible thus overloading GPs. If they’re paid by appointment instead, then there’s an incentive to maximise service and hire more GPs to serve more appointments.
The danger without careful implementation is a new incentive to offer more appointments than needed… but as there’s no perfect system, I’d say that this change is far better than the near impossibility of getting an appointment we see now.
Anybody complaining about this should have to cover for a GP for a day and face the challengers of 25+ appointments a day.
Holy hell, even 15 appointments in a day is unsafe to me.
My wife will typically see in excess of 50 patients per day, on top of 2/3 home visits over her ‘lunch hour’ and will be in work an hour early to review blood results and admin. The only respite is that she has to leave work at 7pm when they lock the building.
Each appointment currently lasts ten minutes. Imagine trying to talk to someone about their suicidal thoughts, pregnancy loss or cancer diagnosis in 10 minutes, all with the risk of being sued if you mess up, and you’ll start to understand the struggles they face.
Say what you want about the difficulties getting appointments (which I accept) but that issue is not caused by the GPs themselves. The mental toll it takes on them is unsustainable.
Forgive me for assuming they were already doing this considering I can’t get a GP appointment for shit (and neither can anyone I know)
Thr BBc comments just devolves into petty jealousy and hatred as per usual. People don’t read the article and see what the problems are. They just froth about make believe doctors who drive Aston Martins and never do any work.. And meanwhile the actual problems continue to get worse.
Why do BBC articles have comments anyway? They serve no purpose.
When a “work to rule” order can cripple an industry then you know the whole thing is fucked.
I’m disappointed in Wes Streeting’s choice of words .
The 2024/2025 contract was set out under the conservative government and things have consistently been underfunded for years, demand is getting higher with more and more being dropped on general practice . These pressures are felt particularly in practices that have large populations in areas of socioeconomic deprivation .
Gp’s are getting burnt out, it’s not just seeing patients , it’s checking lab reports , imaging reports , authorising med 3 for notes , coroners reports , dictating referrals , on top of everything else .
On top of that you have GP partners that pull exceptionally long hours quite often to make sure things tick over .
It’s not sustainable .
Oh no ! I won’t be able to get a face to face appointment. But given that I haven’t been able to get one since 2020 I will have to manage my disappointment
This is good for both patients and gps.
GP’s need a life too and overoworked GP’s are more likely to make mistakes.
There will however be growing pains while appointments become harder to get before hopefully many new gps are hired to fill the gap.
It’s probably easy for me to say its fantastic news for NHS GPs as someone who can afford to guy private.