This GP crisis is being made worse by timewasters
Landline in one hand, mobile in the other, morning coffee untouched, I dial the same number simultaneously. First there is no answer because I am too darn fast off the mark.
But when I redial, the number is frustratingly engaged. Gah! In the space of a split-second, I have now become too slow off the mark.
So I flex both index fingers simultaneously and press redial like a demented gunslinger for the next five minutes, or 14 minutes, or 27 minutes.
It sounds bonkers. It is bonkers. Why? Because I am not trying to get tickets to the freshly announced Ed Sheeran tour or to take part in a high-stakes radio quiz, I’m literally doing it for the good of my health.
And I am far from alone. Every day across the country, countless other mothers, workers, pensioners, carers are urgently hammering their phones in an attempt to get an appointment with their GP.
As Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the new chairman of the British Medical Association, reveals that more than one in four visits to the family doctor is avoidable, we learn that half of these patients just wanted sick notes or benefits forms signed, or were overdramatising sore throats and hay fever. The rest were too stupid to self-medicate ( just shell out for some ibuprofen, will you?), or thought they were too special to just walk to the local chemist like the rest of us (get over yourself, snowflake).
Incidentally, in this malingerer’s roll call, I don’t include people who have mental illness. For them, overanxiously consulting the doctor about a minor headache is a welcome cry for help, not a deplorable exercise in timewasting.
I’ve done it myself, bursting into hysterical tears over a confused (for which read: appalled) hospital dermatologist as I finally admitted to the world I was suffering from post-natal depression.
Oh, and the time I went to see my doctor about my scalp and instead ended up undergoing six weeks of psychotherapy.
And to any sceptics still in any doubt, patients suffering from mental illness on average die 15 to 20 years prematurely, so it’s not all in the mind.
But back to playing redial roulette. God knows what the bedridden and the acutely unwell do; this daily skirmish for limited health service resources is all about survival of the fittest. To paraphrase Bette Davis, being ill is not for sissies.
As I am the conspicuously bolshie parent, it is down to me to get through on behalf of the children and my husband, who is liable to slam down the receiver in blind fury after a mere 30 attempts. Only I am bloody-minded enough to keep going, even when I have passed the 9.30am deadline after which there are, officially, no appointments available.
Why? Because I would only put myself through such punishment if it were genuinely urgent, so I am generally confident I will get a fair hearing whatever the time.
This is because my first port of call is always the pharmacist. I go there for everything. I have stripped myself and the children off so often in his consultation room, we’re on firstname terms, have shared child-rearing tips and have discovered a mutual friend in common from his university days.
Once, my pharmacist immediately called me a cab to go to Moorfield’s Eye Hospital because my sore eye was a lot more serious than I’d imagined, and time was of the essence to save it.
But sometimes only the GP will do. It is entirely reasonable to expect an appointment on the day I, or one of my family, needs it, yet there’s a wait of three – or sometimes four – weeks for a scheduled appointment.
Talking of GP appointments, did you know that there are about 390 million available a year? It makes you wonder why it’s so difficult to get one – until you realise that 97.5 million are taken up unnecessarily.
So how to tackle the alarming disconnect between putative patients and overwhelmed GPS?
Joined-up thinking would be a good place to start. Yes, people need to be injected with an awful lot more self-reliance when it comes to their own health, but doctors need to do their bit, too.
A friend’s nearest surgery operates a system where anyone who rings will get a triage call-back from a doctor in the practice, who will assess whether a same-day appointment really is necessary, can agree to leave a prescription at reception or tell the caller what the protocol is for obtaining sick notes.
She is thrilled as it means she doesn’t have to feel guilty about “taking up” an appointment, when all she needs is a different antibiotic or a prescription for her child’s conjunctivitis. I’m certain the practice is equally happy with the outcome.
The real wonder is why this approach isn’t being adopted wholesale. A few years ago, two similar telephone consulting systems were introduced at a practice in Hertfordshire and another in Tyneand-wear.
They proved such a resounding success that the respective GPS addressed the 2013 annual meeting of the Royal College of GPS, declaring their practices had been transformed.
I’m not surprised. Sixty per cent of patients who rang in did not need to see a doctor, 30 per cent required a face-to-face appointment and 10 per cent were given a slot with the practice nurse – and there were (say it quietly) always free appointments available.
Surely this way of doing things should be rolled out across the whole of the country, to cover all 42,250 family doctors?
Incidentally, I see my own practice has introduced this scheme since I last called them, so I look forward to using it in future. There’s just that vexed problem of getting through to the surgery in the first place…