Patients go to A&E out of desperation, not laziness

EArlIEr this week I received a text from a friend. It was a picture of his daughter’s tonsils. He wanted my advice on whether they looked inflamed. It looked pretty bad and I felt she must visit her doctor.

when we spoke by phone, he explained that he’d tried to get a GP appointment but had failed. Instead, the receptionist advised that he took his daughter to the local walk-in centre, which he did.

There, he was told they couldn’t help — her condition was too serious. They were advised to go to A&E.

After arriving there and waiting five hours, they were eventually seen and the girl was prescribed antibiotics and told to return to her GP if things didn’t improve.

Her condition didn’t get better. In fact, it appeared to have got worse. The painkillers weren’t working and she was unable to swallow. So, my friend phoned his family GP. Still no appointments were available until the following week.

what a dilemma. He’s a painter-decorator and couldn’t afford to see a private GP. And why should he have to? He works hard and pays his taxes, is it really too much to expect for his daughter to be able to see a doctor when she is seriously unwell?

Utterly frustrated, he reluctantly took his daughter to A&E again — and I can’t say I blame him. His story is far from unique and typifies many problems facing the NHS.

This week, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt complained that part of the problem is people going to A&E unnecessarily.

But what he seems to fail to understand is people aren’t doing this out of laziness — they don’t have a choice. one fact is undeniable: there is a scandalous shortage of GPs. This means there simply aren’t enough appointments for patients. So, where else can they go apart from A&E?

Yet the Government’s answer to this mounting crisis was to announce that GPs are to be drafted into hospitals to take over certain tasks so that patients can be sent home earlier. This is utter madness.

GPs should be treating patients in the community — not being sent into hospital to act as human sticking plasters.

Taking them away from their surgeries — the frontline of our NHS — isn’t the answer and will inevitably make matters worse.

THIS week, the Mail revealed how GP practices are often closed during key times of the day. This is something that doesn’t just frustrate patients — it’s hugely annoying for us hospital doctors, too. I often have to contact GPs to discuss a patient, and yet time and again I phone and am answered by a machine saying the surgery is shut for the afternoon and to call back the next day. Is it really too much to ask to be able to speak to a GP surgery during normal working hours?