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Post by moonraker on May 18, 2023 5:04:01 GMT
just discovered you can order a repeat prescription on the NHS app... ive been trudging every month to my GP's surgery with the paperwork... AI..its brill..  Ah! How reassuring that I'm not the only one! Though I have been ringing up the pharmacy to ask for repeats. Often its phone goes unanswered, and last month I did walk down to re-order over the counter, which entailed queuing for 25 minutes. Using the app, I'm about to switch pharmacies, to one six minutes further away but far less busy.
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Post by martin44 on May 19, 2023 18:26:59 GMT
just discovered you can order a repeat prescription on the NHS app... ive been trudging every month to my GP's surgery with the paperwork... AI..its brill.. Ah! How reassuring that I'm not the only one! Though I have been ringing up the pharmacy to ask for repeats. Often its phone goes unanswered, and last month I did walk down to re-order over the counter, which entailed queuing for 25 minutes. Using the app, I'm about to switch pharmacies, to one six minutes further away but far less busy.i have now done the same.. but switch the word "Busy" to "Useless" in my case... 4 days to process a prescription? new pharmacy does it in 2 days... bit pedantic i know.
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Post by moonraker on May 20, 2023 14:07:42 GMT
i have now done the same.. but switch the word "Busy" to "Useless" in my case... 4 days to process a prescription? new pharmacy does it in 2 days... bit pedantic i know. Lucky you! The My Patient app shows that my GP processed the repeats on such a date; four of five working days later, I go into to the pharmacy - and have to wait for my prescriptions to be made up.
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Post by martin44 on May 20, 2023 20:55:49 GMT
i have now done the same.. but switch the word "Busy" to "Useless" in my case... 4 days to process a prescription? new pharmacy does it in 2 days... bit pedantic i know. Lucky you! The My Patient app shows that my GP processed the repeats on such a date; four of five working days later, I go into to the pharmacy - and have to wait for my prescriptions to be made up. An addition to this was... i used to simply phone my repeat thro to the doctors, pick it up next day and walk into the pharmacy and sit for 5 mins... that was not donkeys years ago, it was just pre-pandemic.. my doctors have now told me i cannot order over the phone and i cannot pick up my prescription from the doctors .. baffling really as this is the easiest way to cut out all the stupid delays.
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Post by crabbyoldgit on May 20, 2023 22:06:33 GMT
Our chemist has had not had a pharmacist for nearly 5 years, locums are used ,so never know who you will see and more importantly if the place will actually be open to dispense drugs. Add that to a totally disfunctional gp practice means that after my and wifes annual reviews I would expect it to take 4 months to get all our drugs dispensed on the same date. Last year I had to go to the chemist 5 times a month, wonder why the ques are so long. Trouble now of course the customer facing staff are just walking at both establishments fed up with the frustration and anger of the customers and they cannot attract replacements at any price. I joke not at least a third of visits end up with no drugs because the gp has failed to sign off the prescription in good time. This means a weary walk to the gp, may as phone the Mary Celeste to sort it out and even then they bugger it up again.It took me 3 visits for both me and my wife to get an annual prescription this year they just kept giving a new single month one in error again and again.
I actually found one great thing last year with covid , the gp skipped the annual review and hence thank god the prescription was simply extended for another year, bliss. The comments on Facebook got so bad our mp called a meeting a couple of months ago to try and sort it out and pacify the locals but all we got was a barge with 510 young men to ease the stress on local services. Of course heath services are going to be provided on site by specially commissioned providers, these were to be different to to the local gp provider but that's been dropped and it looks like it's just going to be our gp with an additional contract added to the current one. So how stretched are my local gp service , well my wife was given a date and time to be given a phone call from a nurse to see if see could see a doctor 6 weeks into the future. My gp is called A and E.
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registerme
Member of DD Central
Posts: 6,624 
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Post by registerme on May 21, 2023 9:34:09 GMT
My lodger, who's an ophthalmologist, was on call yesterday. She got called in because an optometrist was worried about a patient who attended her hospital. As it happens there was absolutely nothing wrong with the patient at all. The optometrist had seen utterly normal and benign features and completely misdiagnosed the "problem".
Mistakes happen. But apparently there is no built in feedback loop. Absent a "serious incident review" and there is literally no formal and standard way of going back to the optometrist in question and saying "you got this wrong, can we have a chat about it to ensure that you do better next time".
Also apparently, this isn't limited to the Eye department at this hospital (which is actually a teaching hospital for eye surgeons). Nor is it limited to the hospital in question, instead this lack of capability is widespread across the entire NHS.
It's like deliberately designed organisation ignorance.
This annoys me.
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Post by moonraker on Oct 28, 2023 14:33:19 GMT
Perhaps somewhere in this long thread there are references to the frustrations of ringing one's GP surgery around 0800 for an appointment, hearing the recorded homily about when to ring about other matters, then getting the engaged tone - six or seven times over? (I gather that funding may have been announced to improve surgeries' telephone systems?)
I had another (minor) telephonic frustration yesterday. Early in the afternoon I spoke with a department at my local hospital that ended with a reasonably acceptable understanding and the nurse saying she would mention our conversation to a colleague. At 1726 I missed a call from a number that my phone didn't recognise, but looking it up on the Who-called website revealed that it was a general, unlisted number for the hospital, perhaps used for booking appointments. It had been looked up 22,550 times and there were 57 users comments, a sizeable proportion suggesting that it was a spam number, one that did not respond to call backs and so on, resulting in a "neutral" rating.
Surely if a patient doesn't answer their phone, a short message could be left, on the lines of "We rang about your [type of appointment] Sorry we missed you. We'll try again on the next weekday."? This would save a lot of confusion and doubt.
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benaj
Member of DD Central
N/A
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Post by benaj on Oct 28, 2023 16:13:49 GMT
Surely if a patient doesn't answer their phone, a short message could be left, on the lines of "We rang about your [type of appointment] Sorry we missed you. We'll try again on the next weekday."? This would save a lot of confusion and doubt. I have observed better experience. A family member didn’t answer the phone, the practice rang me instead without delay. Other times, a video appointment was booked for a family member on day x, but the actual appointment was day x+1. On the letter, it clearly states day x, but the text confirmation received on day x say x+1
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Greenwood2
Member of DD Central
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Post by Greenwood2 on Oct 28, 2023 16:31:29 GMT
Ours say ring at 8:00 and you find you are in a queue of maybe 30, If you ring at 11:00 you get through straight away, but obviously not for a that day appointment. If they told people who didn't need an urgent appointment to ring later it would be so much more sensible.
Edit: Our pharmacy is good, but often the GP surgery has not sent the prescription when they should have, so they 'don't have it yet' best to leave it at least an extra day from when it should have got there.
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Post by moonraker on Oct 28, 2023 17:33:15 GMT
Just been looking at my on-line patient record. My blood pressure readings were updated four days ago, but I haven't had my blood pressure taken by a professional since August 4, and that was by a surgeon who's never fed into my record. The last readings taken by my GP were on May 25. 
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agent69
Member of DD Central
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Post by agent69 on Oct 28, 2023 18:16:39 GMT
Down in deepest, darkest Devon the NHS appears to be working well. I had an issue recently with a couple of lumps inside my mouth that wouldn't go away. I booked a same day telephone consultation with a doctor, and they said come in for an examination. It went something like this:
- I visited the doctor on a Monday and she said she didn't think they were anything serious, but the policy of the surgery was to refer people to a consultant in Exeter under the 2 week wait system
- The following morning I received a phone call from the hospital asking if I could come in to see the consultant at lunch time.
- The consultant looked at them and said he didn't think they were anything serious, but best to get one biopsied to be on the safe side.
- The nurse in the hospital made me an appointment to see the surgeon in 2 weeks time.
- While waiting to see the surgeon I had a routine check up at the dentists. The dentist looked at the lumps and said she didn't think they were anything serious
- I visited the surgeon in Exeter hospital and he looked and prodded the lumps a couple of times. He said that he wouldn't be too concerned if he didn't biopsy either lump, because he was certain they weren't serious. Then he looked at me and said 'but as you're here and I've already got my knife out we might just as well do one'.
Stiches haven't dissolved yet, but I'm back to eating steak and chips.
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michaelc
Member of DD Central
Say No To T.D.S.
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Post by michaelc on Oct 28, 2023 18:17:30 GMT
Crazily difficult to get an appointment and yet I'm told the extra 10 million people this country houses since 2000 is nothing to do with it.
In my mind the tensions started when Blair jumped the gun and allowed a few million Poles to migrate here even though at that time, hardly any other country did so. They of course in my view have been highly productive and a net positive to this country but where was the planning of services to accommodate this change? The increase in medical places at medical school? Ditto nurses and dentists. The Planning system to allow enough houses (NIMBY of course) ? Road and rail infrastructure. etc etc etc.
The biggest problem in all of this are the racists and bigots who don't want johnny foreigner here at any cost. The second biggest problem are those that stick their fingers in their ears and sing, "la la la la...I can't here you..." and accuse anyone of suggesting this is a problem that needs planning for as racists, bigots etc. Just look at RM's post in another thread - his answer to all of this is that the population has hardly increased at all. Lets recognise there is a big issue here and deal with it.
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Post by bracknellboy on Oct 28, 2023 18:59:40 GMT
Crazily difficult to get an appointment and yet I'm told the extra 10 million people this country houses since 2000 is nothing to do with it.In my mind the tensions started when Blair jumped the gun and allowed a few million Poles to migrate here even though at that time, hardly any other country did so. They of course in my view have been highly productive and a net positive to this country but where was the planning of services to accommodate this change? The increase in medical places at medical school? Ditto nurses and dentists. The Planning system to allow enough houses (NIMBY of course) ? Road and rail infrastructure. etc etc etc. The biggest problem in all of this are the racists and bigots who don't want johnny foreigner here at any cost. The second biggest problem are those that stick their fingers in their ears and sing, "la la la la...I can't here you..." and accuse anyone of suggesting this is a problem that needs planning for as racists, bigots etc. Just look at RM's post in another thread - his answer to all of this is that the population has hardly increased at all. Lets recognise there is a big issue here and deal with it. and who has told you that ? On the second point, he posted a link to a chart which gave you the objective information on the subject. unless there is a post that is invisble to me but visible to you, he made not the slightest comment on it, let alone to deny what the subjective data he posted says.
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hazellend
Member of DD Central
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Post by hazellend on Oct 28, 2023 22:31:39 GMT
The governments plan is to replace doctors with non doctors who have far less training, knowledge and experience. They are cheaper though. I do wish governments would have a mature discussion with the population about what the NHS can provide for current levels of funding.
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Post by brightspark on Oct 29, 2023 8:10:11 GMT
This is yet another disaster in the making. GPs are not perfect but overall they provided a service of which by and large the public approved. Now they are effectively being removed from front line duties to back office to be replaced with others who are not anywhere near as well trained or experienced.
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