#NHS GP

[firscare]

Finding the Best GP in Walthamstow: A Guide to Quality NHS Healthcare

Accessing the right healthcare services is essential for maintaining good health. Whether you need a routine check-up, treatment for an ongoing condition, or advice on general wellness, finding the best GP in Walthamstow is crucial. A reliable NHS GP can provide comprehensive healthcare, ensuring that you and your family receive the best possible medical attention. If you are looking for a trusted Woodford GP, there are several excellent options to consider as well.

[thatfailedexperiment]

February 19th at 1:30pm, thatd when my gender app9ntment is, thats the appointment where i am supposed to get my perscription, the fucking meeting ive waited 6 years of referrals and other meetings for.

And even though ive given my GP my new name to change the nhs system hasnt been updated WHY HAVENT THEY DONE IT YET.

Ig i dont get those blood test results to them before the day i dont get me perscription. I AM NOT LOSING THIS BECAUSE THE GP IS DOGDSHIT.

TLDR: i may be a bit stressed.

[calicobeesblog]

SO… strap in this is going to be a ride.

When I went to my GP for my appointment they said I was seeing a physio therapist, and I was confused because this appointment was booked to address the fact that I felt feint whenever I stood up or walked for too long and I was losing my ability to do day to day things by myself.

But I see the doctor anyways because maybe the doctor I’m seeing is just in the physio therapy room temporarily (I’ve gone to the doctors before when this was the case so it wouldn’t be too left field for me to think this). But no, I walk in and explain what’s going on and the first thing he said was “you shouldn’t be seeing me”.

Then he looks at my medical records and he doesn’t have ANYTHING before 2024. None of my past doctors appointments, none of my hospital stays, none of my MRIs, X-Rays, CT scans, blood work, past diagnosis, or allergies (I have severe allergies to a handful of medication so it’s kinda important that a doctor can see that).

And so he explains that and then I have to basically do a speed run of my very long medical history and he’s like “we’ll have to do some tests again” (I’ve lost count of the times this has happened to me, I’m ready to fist fight the NHS at this point, but usually it’s one or two things not my ENTIRE MEDICAL HISTORY).

He then said the emergency blood tests (they need to check literally everything) that were supposed to be booked in September weren’t ever booked (even though I called to check that they were) so they’re going to be booked with someone completely different from my GP and I’ll get a call at some point to tell me when and where they are.

to say I’m beyond livid is not even scratching the surface.

Anyways I hope y’all are having a better day than I am.

I have a doctors appointment I need to leave for in like 10 minutes and I’m so stressed. I’m going alone and this is the first time I’m seeing this doctor, I’ll do an update after the appointment but I’m just so worried that they won’t listen to me.

[dxmedstudent]

What do GPs do?

For the past few years, there's been a constant undercurrent of hostility towards the medical field in mainstream media, particularly GPs. Especially from certain conservative former doctors who write in to the Torygraph.

One of the charges levelled against GPs is that they are purpotedly ruining the NHS by not working enough hours. They need to be making more time for appointments and are all shirking.

How do GPs work?

GP work is measured in sessions, defined by the BMA as a 4h 10 minute time slot. 3 hours of this is meant to be clinical time, with some admin time for tasks - meant to be at least and hour. Typically, a whole day will involve a session in the morning and a session in the afternoon.

What do GPs do? The BMA breaks it down here. I also find articles by GPs can be useful for explaining. When not talking to patients, we are sending referrals or liaising with specialists about their care. We are checking blood test results and other investigations that were carried out by the practice, and then informing patients. We are filling prescriptions- each time a patient asks for their prescription to be refilled, a doctor or pharmacist is checking the order and whether it is safe to give, abd whether we are monitiring blood tests and keeping the patient safe. We are reading letters from specialists and actioning their recommendations.

However, in reality, multiple surveys reveal that GPs spend significantly more time working than what they are directly paid for. Whilst a 6 session GP should be spending around 24 hours at work, it's closer to 38 hours on average. GPs report spending up to 40% of their working time on admin - much of it being unpaid time outside of the hours they are contractually hired for. I and most GPs I know routinely stay late at work in order to make sure patient care is completed. We're in before 9am and leave between 7 or 8pm.

Add to that that many might have further responsibilities, especially if they are a partner in the practice.

Funnily enough, full time in general practice is considered to be 8 sessions. That's 4 long days. Gone are the days when anyone would consider a 5 day working week for GPs, because the workload is increasingly intense and sessions generate more paperwork than they used to.

Demand Is Increasing

GPs may be moving towards working less sessions, but that's because our work is getting more complex. As patients live longer, with more complicated combinations of illnesses and treatments, and we exist in a society that has progressively defunded social care and benefits, and impoverished our most vulnerable patients, there are more calls on our time abd attention than ever before. Stripped hospital services are increasingly rejecting our referrals, often inappropriately and against actual guidelines. Services are being pushed onto GPs via shared care agreements that would once have been handled by specialist teams in clinic. Services that we heavily rely on to serve our patients are sometimes defunded or disappear as contracts end or are transferred to new providers. Long wait lists lead to exasperated patients repeatedly seeing their GPs to manage issues that can't be managed well in the community.

There's a narrative in the media that appointments are impossible to get, but in reality, nationally GP surgeries are providing more appointments per month than they did before the pandemic. For example, 25.7 million appointments (excluding Covid vaccinations) were delivered by GP practices in December 2023, an increase of 9% compared to pre-pandemic. Practices are trying to find how to offer more appointments on a budget and how to improve access and find alterantive ways to serve patients; for example online forms, so that phone lines are freed up for vulnerable patients. Many practices are also offering longer appointments as many patients have complex needs.

Let's talk Pay

People also assume GPs are rich, but that's not really the case, especially given most of us wrent working full time. Average pay for a session is somewhere between 10k and 12k a year for each session a week that you work, depending on things like seniority and location. So for example, a 5 session GP earning 10k per session can expect to earn 50k a year. That's barely above the London average salary of 44k for a job that requires medical school, often an additional bachelor's degree and then at least 5 years of postgraduate training at minimum. That's more comfortable than a lot of vulnerable people, but it's nowhere near what most people think. Even if someone is paid higher per session and working more sessions, the average is still closer to 80 or 90k for salaried GP roles.

I've found figures that suggest the average GP salary is just over 100k, but that includes people doing separate private work or being partners, where in reality these are different roles that are paid differently. Partners are effectively shareholders in the practice. Locum or private work is much more lucrative and needs to be considered separately from a standard salaried role.

Some Partners may be earning £100k-150 in a good year, but that will be after working a LOT of overtime outside of their clinics, abd is in line with hospital specialists. The proportion of GPs earning more than that are miniscule. And honestly, if someone is working a ton of extra hours with their local LMC or med school or deanery, or doing a ton of locum work in evenings and weekends, I'm happy for them to be earning more money than me. Extra work and hours should be rewarded.

The Gender Aspect

I think we need to address the fact that complaining about doctors choosing to work less than what is defined as full time, often goes hand in hand with people complaining about women having the temerity to work in medicine. Apparently we're devaluing the profession by making it too female, going part time and having children. Why us ut that nobidy cares about whether men are going less than full time to look after their kids, and whether fathers are missing out on their children's upbringing?

As women, many of us are still facing sexism in our working lives. Whilst still having to deal with the fact that even uf we earn more and work longer hours than our menfolk, we usually end up doing the majority of the childcare and housework. Women in medicine are more likely to go less than full time because we are more likely to feel compelled to take on unpaid labour at home. Like our non medical sisters.

For reference, the full time nursing week in the NHS is 37.5h - with some variation between 36-40h depending on where you work. Working part time would benefit nurses, too. The nursing workforce is mostly women, and yet there's not the same outrage about their working hours or going less than full time, because women being nurses is expected. People don't seem to care about nurses' working conditions or the stresses they are under, and honestly most articles ignore the financial stresses or difficulties of most NHS workers because they are normally focused on doctors as a resource that they want to exploit maximally.

We aren't out there trying to police what hours other professions work - or at least, we shouldn't be. So why does the public feel entitled to dictate what hours doctors should be working? It's not like people are being paid for hours they aren't working!

[emberunderscore]

soon my body will be well enough for me to play on q56 again .. right guys ? right???

[pinkcarsupremacy]

Would be objectively hilarious btw if Mercedes couldn't run their cars today because of the Crowdstrike outage (Mercedes sponsor) causing blue screens on computers today across Europe.

[mariemariemaria]

it is so deeply concerning to me that whenever a family member has something wrong with them and i tell them to go to the doctor about it they always respond with something like "sure I'd never get an appointment" "what are they going to do about it?" "I've been before and they don't want to know" "they'd laugh me out of the room" our healthcare system is broken

[the-ace-with-spades]

how I know GPs actually don't want to help their trans patients at all: my GP 'doesn't feel comfortable' prescribing me birth control

this is a rant but I'm so fucking tired and I need to let it out

I've been on waitlist for NHS GIC for over two years, estimated 7 more years, I went private after DIYing HRT on and off over a year ago. First, I heard from my GP that as long as the psychiatrist and endo also work for the NHS, we'll prescribe your T for you, then once you finish your 6-month review, we'll do that, and then actually, I want you to have reviews every 3 months and only then I'll prescribe it for you - which would be more expensive than just buying it with private prescription by over x100 (review is £150, private prescription for 3 months is less than £15 with postage and filling). "I'm not comfortable prescribing TRT to someone who is biologically female," is what she 'explained', and, "This is not what testosterone use was intended for and I'm not knowledgeable enough in what kind of side-effects it'll have on you to put my registration on the line." I could show her the fucking BNF and how masculinizing gender identity disorder therapy is literally right under low T levels for men, and she'd still turn the other way.

Now, see I'm a trans guy who still gets his periods. I wasn't too bothered about them, but it seems that it was because my E was too high (or got too high, it was alright on DIY and then on the legal T at first). My endo said she will prescribe me birth control that would work as an E blocker before we try typical blockers (mostly due to a history of early osteoporosis in my family)

The birth control in question is regularly prescribed to cis women that feel bad on the typical pill, in fact, my cousin is on it, and my endo said my GP should not have a problem prescribing it but she'll send a guideline anyway. It's a 3-monthly injection that needs to be administrated at the GP and can otherwise get expensive as a private prescription because you need to book the administration service as well (even tho I have a few colleague nurses who would do it for free for me or tho I'm technically allowed to administrate it, being a nurse myself).

I go to my GP with the guidelines from my endo added to the system and what does my GP say? "I don't feel comfortable prescribing this to you."

I ask why. She says it wasn't designed to act as an E blocker. I'm like, "You know it is birth control because it lowers estrogen production enough that the menstrual cycle doesn't proceed the way it's supposed to, right?" and basically give her a mini-lecture on how hormones operate the reproductive system because it's a fucking basic information. She says estrogen is needed for other functions as well and she's afraid it'll get too low on the injection, and like, yes, I know this --- something they taught me in fucking middle school --- but I have blood tests done every 3 months and my last said I have high estrogen by female ranges, not to mention male, so being too low is not even an option right now. She doesn't really say anything but, "I'll not prescribe it because I only feel comfortable prescribing it to women and I don't have enough knowledge to prescribe it to someone on testosterone."

So yes, I'm a woman to her when it suits her, or I'm not, if that suits her better.

[firscare]

Finding the Best NHS GP in Walthamstow for Your Healthcare Needs

Accessing quality healthcare is essential, and having a reliable NHS GP ensures that you receive timely medical attention for all your health concerns. If you're searching for doctors in Walthamstow, you’ll find a range of experienced medical professionals ready to provide excellent care. Among the trusted healthcare providers in the area, GP Walthamstow services, including those at The Firs Medical Centre, stand out for their comprehensive and patient-centric approach.

[aefensteorrra]

Endometriosis is so insane. You can tell your gp hey my leg goes numb and shakes uncontrollably for one day of every month and they’ll be like huh yeah it’s probably grown on your sciatic nerve just take ibuprofen LIKE?!?!

[leikeliscomet]

Preparing for battle (phoning my GP at 8am)

[flyhighisco]

how's everyone doing? me personally, well tomorrow will mark the week anniversary since i began a battle with my doctors surgery to get my prescription

[csashton]

hearing the words "verstappen in a Haas sandwich" is so funny to me after how this season has gone so far..

[twinkbasement]

day of admin phone calls before everything shuts down lol wouldnt have to do this if anyone actually contacted me like they were meant to or did their jobs properly lol

[landosmclaren]

oscar is so chill all the time he’s just like ‘one for the mantelpiece’ if i’d just got a P3 in my rookie f1 season id be going absolutely feral id be chugging beers out of shoes and parading that trophy through the streets like it’s my firstborn child