£20 out of hours fees

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,2095043,00.html

I would be up for that

I would support a £20 fee seeing a different GP outside of your normal practice (ie: if you lived in Reading, commuted to London, but wanted to see a London GP).  I wouldn't agree to a fee for an evening or weekend appointment at your normal practice.

I'd be fine with it as long as it was for appointment based, routine visits. I'd also be fine with paying extra to go to someone other than your regular GP.

I don't see why they brought up the woman who died of septicemia though. What does that have to do with the original topic of the article? Poor service is poor service no matter what time of the day it is.

Considering, for example, my husband has to take a morning/day off of work to be able to see our GP (because he works so far from home and starts so early), so unless it is serious (and oftentimes beyond when he should have gone and has weeks of suffering whatever aliment), he just doesn't go to the GP.  That we would have to pay to see the GP after work hours is kind of obnoxious. Staggered hours might be a way of avoiding extra costs; for example, start the surgery at 1pm two days a week, keeping the surgery open until 9 those days or perhaps having a late start to Friday in order to have a 4 hour opening on a Saturday.

I agree completely, Stella.

I think this penalises the working poor who have to work during office hours, too, as opposed to shift workers.

Being a doctor is not a 9-5 job anymore than many other professions.  Didn't they kind of know that when they signed up for medical school?

And what is wrong with offering health care workers SET rotas across the board?

I knew plenty of docs in the US who wanted to work non-traditional hours so their days were free for other things that were important to them - like climbing, and fortunately, there was space to accommodate them.

Either have a two-tiered system or don't.

Being a doctor is not a 9-5 job anymore than many other professions.  Didn't they kind of know that when they signed up for medical school?

Exactly! So much for accommodating the patient. When we first moved to our town, our GP was open on Saturdays (half day) but that soon stopped . Now its incredibly difficult to have to run there every two months to get my husband's prescription slip to get his refills. Luckily we found out that Boots has a pick up and fill program so now we can go directly to the pharmacy to pick it up. (Of course it depends on where your surgery is in relation to the Boots store).

I run nurse clinics and frankly I'm little annoyed at some of the appointments I got one guy booked an appointment in order for me to remove a plaster because he hates the sight of blood so I have to wait till 5:30 to see some 40+ bussiness man that because his wife is away he can't do it.  A good percentage of the appointments are perscription refills which you don't need to book appointments for those are handled in a different way but still they book them crowding out the people that really need appointments.

The prescription refill system in place at my GP's office (and seemingly other places) is one of the things I do find a bit frustrating here. Is it REALLY necessary to waste everyone's time with having to re-request a script every 28 days for the daily meds I have taken for years (and will continue to take). It's so inefficient!

I run nurse clinics and frankly I'm little annoyed at some of the appointments I got one guy booked an appointment in order for me to remove a plaster because he hates the sight of blood so I have to wait till 5:30 to see some 40+ bussiness man that because his wife is away he can't do it.  A good percentage of the appointments are perscription refills which you don't need to book appointments for those are handled in a different way but still they book them crowding out the people that really need appointments.

I don't know about your area but over here what I have found strange is that when you call to make an appointment, there is no discussion of what it is for, which would usually take place in order to prep the doctor or nurse for what their appointments would be. It's like they don't want to know. But then, when someone shows up for something that could have been headed off at the pass, it's used as an example of why evening appointments are a waste of time. It's like there's no line of defense for the appointments, and that to me makes no sense. Doctors know they get timewasters, they know their time is valuable, why isn't there a system of checking before booking?

Or maybe that's just my GP?

I thought it was odd, anyway.

I don't know about your area but over here what I have found strange is that when you call to make an appointment, there is no discussion of what it is for, which would usually take place in order to prep the doctor or nurse for what their appointments would be. It's like they don't want to know.

An example of this happened to me a couple days ago. I was suffering a lot after a dental surgery, the hospital told me to see my GP. My husband called the doctor's office and explained the situation and I went in to see the Nurse Practitioner a few hours later. She had me in the office for about ten minutes, I waited in the waiting room feeling like I might faint and then was told (after waiting awhile for a glass of water) to leave and see my dentist because that was what the doctor told her. A little better communication would not go amiss so that everyone could have less time wasted and get on to the cases that everyone is able and willing to sort out.

The prescription refill system in place at my GP's office (and seemingly other places) is one of the things I do find a bit frustrating here. Is it REALLY necessary to waste everyone's time with having to re-request a script every 28 days for the daily meds I have taken for years (and will continue to take). It's so inefficient!

this is my biggest pet peeve with my surgery.  i have been on the same thryoid medication for 14 years.  i used to go to the dr in the us, he'd take blood, and give me a Rx for the following year.  granted i had to go to the actual pharmacy and pick it up once a month. but no need to visit the dr again for another year.

here.... at first they said i had to see them every (6) months.  (they've just recently changed it to every 12 months) even though they only take blood every year.  and then the rx is only for 28 days.  so every 28 days i fax through a repeat rx, go to the pharmacy, pick it up, send it to boots.com, package of medication shows up at work.  i have been told that this is because the surgery makes money on every rx they write.  also b/c its less wasteful. argh!

this is my biggest pet peeve with my surgery.

Mine too.  From 5 weeks to 12 months old, DD was on a formula the was only available by rx.  They would write it for 4 cans which would only last about 2 weeks, give or take.  So everytime I needed formula, I had to go to the office pick up the rx and then to the pharmacy, with baby in tow.  It wasn't so bad at first since we lived close by, but there was a big kerfuffle when we moved and switched doctors.  The new surgery said they had to wait til they got her records before they would give me an rx, so I would have to take two busses to get the rx from the old surgery.  It was a pain in the ars*. This went on for two months and they still never got her records.  Apparently they had to be sent all the way to some office in Belfast and then back to our new surgery.  I finally saw the new HV and she saw that DD had been on it by looking in her red book and got the new dr to issue the rx. 

Stella, I absolutely 100% agree with your idea of them having staggered hours.

at my clinic you have to ask in fact the booking system we use asked what is the appointment for . so when you see your appoint list you see the name and the reason why they are there but it doesn't help when the pt fibs about why they are there or say "it's private I really need to see x" it's when they are at the consult when they say

"welllll I actually need this perscription done"

you don't need to book an appointment to have your perscription refilled you just have to sign a form and drop it at the desk , in fact some perscriptions if they don't require a review (bp check , bloods , or examination) can even be done online of course that's not with every practice but it is with ours. It's just some people still need the face to face confirmation , can't deal with making more than one trip , etc.

At my GP, if you want a prescription refill, you have to send them a letter, and then they will rewrite the prescription for you. If you want the prescription mailed to you, you have to provide a self-addressed stamped envelope. Otherwise you have to go to the surgery to pick it up.

I'm lucky in that I live next door to the surgery, so I can just drop off the prescription.  But that doesn't apply to most people.

I don't see the point of it. I'd say they need the letter for the records, except the prescription itself is on their computer, so that is their record.

(This thread just reminded me that I have to write a letter to refill my asthma medicine  )

At my old GP, you could have the neighbor call with your name and any request for medication whether you had been previously prescribed it or not and the neighbor could send her kids round to collect the medicine for you from the phramacist.

I live in a great neighborhood, I'm telling you.