Extra £50Million For Doctors To Answer Emails?

[Gromit]

Doctors will receive an extra £50million to open their surgeries longer. The money is to encourage them to open until 8pm week days and open at weekends.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10763086/Ministers-tell-GPs-to-open-all-hours.html

But will it work?

In 2004, in what was one of Labour's worse mistakes, they renegotiated doctors contracts with the BMA who totally wiped the floor with them. Doctors were given a load more money but also an option to bow out of after hours services. Most of them did. Their pay increased greatly and there hours reduced significantly.

As far as I can tell, that contract has not been torn up. The Government are offering Doctors still more money to do the out of hours services. The small print states 

// The reforms, to be launched tomorrow, are expected to see patient consultations over video-link, secure email and telephone. 

A new wave of health “apps” is being developed to enable patients to monitor their conditions on smartphones and feed data back to doctors.
“There are enormous opportunities here to provide better care and support but also to cut out cost in a rather bureaucratic system,” Mr Lamb said.

“If we have got something that we just want checked out, we don’t want to take time off work or go through the nightmare of trying to get an appointment that suits our working lives. We just want to be able to email our GP to get a quick answer.” //

Are we being conned again?

[Sqad]

This is a situation developed over a half century bringing state medicine, free at the point of need to the masses......rich and poor alike.

An excellent conception and at it,s inception was historical.

GP,s fronted the NHS with the hospital backing up from a wide base.

Health, treatment and diagnosis has changed over time but the concept of a GP led NHS remains the same, demanded by the public and welcomed by GP,s with extravagant financial gain.

This is the wrong way.....GP,s should be that....general practitioners and work in polyclinics with consultant support at hand. Less resources to GP,s and more to the hospital services.

This will not happen as it would be political suicide but would improve the standard of healthcare.

[boxtops]

Presumably the £50K is how much it has been costing to run the out of hours survices once the GP practices shut up shop each night? Many of our local GPs work on the OOH service anyway, but wearing a different hat.

It's about time we came back to having GP practices opening at hours to suit the patient, not the GP -personally I'd love to be able to have a 6pm or later appointment, but it will need more staffing, and £50M doesn't go very far.

I used to be able to email my GP and practice nurse with minor queries - it was brillient - but since that GP left, I can't any more. However, we can now request repeat prescriptions through the surgery website, which saves trekking over there with the bit of paper.

OH had surgery four years ago without ever seeing the GP. He needed a sinus operation and emailed the GP. GP referred him to a consultant electronically. Long and short - the GP didn't need to see him, even post-op, only to prescribe ongoing meds for OH. Worked brilliantly - I could do with more of that sort of service.

[boxtops]

Sqad, it's the old 80-20 rule - 80% of consultations in primary care, with 20% of the existing funding.......

[Sqad]

I agree with both of boxtops posts.....the first particularly well written.

[youngmafbog]

Its about time that those that pay for the service can access it. My surgery does offer early morning although on the odd occasion i do go tgere is the inevitable oap. They should be banned from these out of normal hours service.
As for tge extra cash, we wont see anything for it.
Personally I have private health care, far better.

[Beetee210]

My son is a GP and increasingly works longer hours and looks more and more exhausted. Sometimes he is so tired I'm not sure he should be making difficult decisions. His practice opens at 7am and the last patients are seen at 6pm with emergencies until 6.30pm. The early morning appts are rarely taken up by workers. Then he sees in the press that he is supposedly earning £100,000 - he wishes! He is well paid but nothing like that. Now he's being asked to work even more hours. He works 45-50 hour week plus paperwork and meetings and Out of Hours.
Would you want a doctor to work more than that? His concentration cannot be as good if he works any more.

[DrFilth]

this electronic web thingy is the way forward and in the near future we might see

answerdocsite

answerburialsite

answerundertakersite

answerflowersite

do the lot on the web from your own home get all your questions answered online

[cupotee2]

Our surgery runs "open surgery" where you sit and wait between 9-11 and 3-5. Its the way surgeries were run successfully when I was a child, but these days surgeries have many many more patients to see and it most definitely doesn't work now.
It invariably means a wait of up to 2 hours in a crowded waiting room with fractious children and babies, people coughing often looking and feeling poorly while they sit in this bug filled environment.

I hear now the surgery agrees its not working well and going back to ringing for an appointment on the day.

However, to avoid these long waits I have rung and asked to speak to my husbands GP who happily prescribed or advised over the phone.

That proves to me telephone appointments are one way to go, but even then should be done with great care as it often means patients are self diagnosing if they aren't face to face with the go.

[whiskeryron]

Hi Doc
Just a problem with Haemorrhoids, trying to get web cam into right position, don't know which is the best angle, problems with the light please advise.

[DrFilth]

whiskeryron having problems with my isp please take two ibuprofen 3 times a day if needed and avoid madras curries and holts best bitter if no better in a weeks time send me another email, the doc -)

[Everhelpful]

Great idea,ymblog,ban OAP's from Daytime Surgeries so people like yourself can go unhindered,they have only paid in most of their lives, but that matters nothing to the arrogant,self-centered in our Society.!!

[Beetee210]

Ever I think he was meaning the early morning appts not daytime ones. The early morning ones were put on to help workers though as I said in my post in our local surgery few workers choose to use them

[Everhelpful]

Beetee,does that mean I shouldn't go to an early morning appointment? Another thing us OAP's shouldn't do,it would probably make a lot of people happy if we just curled up and died.(I only go when the GP tells me as we can't dictate when at our Surgery.)

[Beetee210]

Ever helpful - I think I must have written it wrongly - don't mean that at all. Was meaning that they were introduced to enable workers to see a doctor before work however few workers take the opportunity to use them. I suppose if those appts were popular with workers and in short supply non-workers, like myself, could be asked if they were able to go at another time. By the way I am an OAP too so hope we don't have to curl up!!!

[emmie]

our surgery continually takes on patients, no idea how they do it, there are a lot of doctors, most of whom seem to be part time, no idea where they work the rest of the time, but you only have to ask to see a specific person and get told he/she is not in today, one only works on Fridays,
if you want to be seen, then wait weeks, or go on the day and hope you can get your ten minutes of their time

[emmie]

our out of hours doctor service is appalling.