I medici di base lanciano l’allarme mentre i pazienti segnalano sintomi potenzialmente letali in forma non urgente
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/gp-surgery-nhs-online-bma-b2854547.html
di OGSyedIsEverywhere
I medici di base lanciano l’allarme mentre i pazienti segnalano sintomi potenzialmente letali in forma non urgente
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/gp-surgery-nhs-online-bma-b2854547.html
di OGSyedIsEverywhere
10 commenti
I think this, and the stuff upper lip is going to cause a lot of deaths. That’s the reason we need face to face with doctors who understand classic British understatement.
To Whom It May Concern,
I have shooting pains in my chest.
Please respond forthwith.
Yours sincerely.
Notice how both headlines are prominent at the minute:
“Don’t go to A&E unless you’re really quite seriously about to die!”
“Don’t go to the GP if your symptoms are life threatening!”
Feels like one could exacerbate the other.
I recently had a routine BP check (as part of other ongoing treatment) and they were concerned.
I had to go back three weeks later and have another test, which also came back unusually high.
I had to buy myself a monitor and take a week’s worth of measurements, which had to be taken to the local pharmacist. When I did this, they sent an urgent request for me to see a doctor.
I waited two weeks to get a text message asking me to make an appointment.
Thanks to the Hunger Games system employed by GP receptionists, it took another two weeks of calling to get an appointment.
When I turned up, it wasn’t with the GP as requested, it was with the nurse. She told me to take some readings for a week and go see a pharmacist…
In all of this, my blood pressure was only high when I was trying to be seen, due to the anxiety or being messed around. I’ve taken the view that if I’m not dead, it must not have been something to worry about.
Well if you write it down on a form it can’t be ignored, whereas when you try and explain it to a receptionist it can.
I used the form, for the first time, last week, and I thought it was great. It allows you to get through to the surgery, and for a Dr to review your needs, without having to spend hours holding on the phone.
Since COVID, I have found it almost impossible to access a GP. Calling the surgery took forever and, more often than not, by the time I got through I was told that all appointments were taken and to call back tomorrow.
I filled in the form, online, and explained my symptoms. Within 15 minutes I had a call from one of the GPs to arrange for me to go in. Within an hour of filling in the form, I had seen a Dr. So much fairer than the 8 am telephone scramble.
My surgery has had this option long before it has been made mandatory, and it explicitly makes it clear (basically a warning message) that if you are experiencing serious, potentially life threatening symptoms (eg. Symptoms of a heart attack, stroke, head injury etc) to go to A&E, all before you can continue with the form to submit it.
But the doctors are the ones we go to to identify whether the symptoms are life threatening or just a temporary glitch. Of course we don’t know which ones are life threatening and which aren’t, we don’t have that training.
Our new online GP form is the most counter intuitive form I’ve used (and I work in tech..)
Oh you want a blood test? Oh yeah you can’t do it here, it’s on the NHS app. Oh the NHS app says you need to get a doctor to confirm you need blood tests.. Okay.. But what appointment type? SECRET.
The way this is positioned is weird “We set up a way for people to contact us and it turns out all these patients want to contact us!!” 😨
I suppose this is GP surgeries way of pressuring for more money for staff. Which is a good thing. They shouldn’t be shaming patients for contacting them though.