World’s quickest “emergency”.

At one of our regular Resistance meetings at the Café Michelle we were talking about various practice records. With the UK hosting the 2012 Olympics we wish to invite our readers to comment on what they regard as their quickest waster of space for a Gordon/Tony jerk off instant satisfaction within 48 hour access appointment for nothing medically wrong. Our previous record was a massive I have had a sore throat for 2 whole hours and it really really hurts.

Impressed doc as to how ill I am?

Not. It is a virus. Bye bye.

We have now had a new record of I have had a really, really, really, really sore throat for 15 minutes and it really hurts. Good job it wasn’t something serious like a cancer you might have come to some serious harm by waiting that long before seeking a consult and now after 20 minutes you are clearly on the critical list. You desperately need a sick note and a friendly that must be really awful for you poor lovey stat.

Impressed doc as to how ill I am?

Not. It is a virus. Bye bye.

A whole morning of this kind of thing or can I get my blood test results I thought they would be back today when you had them done this morning and the samples haven’t even reached the hospital yet makes you realize how General Practice has become a baby’s pacifier for the politicians to stick in the public's mouth.

In contrast to the “can you see my husband?” who walked into the surgery supported by his wife “he has had severe stomach pain for the last few hours” and looked ghastly. When examined he had a tender abdominal aortic aneurysm. This patient was seen immediately based on patient need not political expediency given IV fluids analgesia oxygen and helemeded for true emergency treatment.

Amazingly this triple A survived, only one of the 1 in 3 that do. You will be more pleased to know that our 2 previous record breakers with sore throats survived despite the complete lack of medical activity that they so richly deserved. They will no doubt be in training to compete in the next round of can I get an appointment even quicker next time Olympics that is the daily rush for acute on the day appointments to meet Gord and Tony’s targets for the treatment of non illness.

Perhaps there should be a new Olympic sport where countries compete to see who can get the quickest on the day appointment with no significant medical illness? In that competition we bet we would win gold for the politicians have been spending huge sums to train our athletes for years in contrast to the sums they provide our real Olympic athletes.

Perhaps we could have Olympic figure visiting whereby requests for visits are judged on the poise and foot mobility of the athletes requesting them? Again we would win gold as we have so many well practiced individuals.

Perhaps we could have an event akin to shot putting called swinging the lead competition whereby patients unable to work due to their bad backs compete to see how far they put the shot and that distance is added to the length of their time off on their sick note? We are sure the Benefit’s Agency would be very interested spectators at that event.

The worrying thing is we are noticing that these appointments are being used more and more by the same small group of individuals some of whom are seen in the morning are not better by lunchtime and so decide to compete again in the afternoon. This used to happen occaisionally but now is becoming more of a marathon not just on one day but sometimes with the same individuals on several days in the same week.

When we were able to set the rules as to who was seen on the same day e.g. no sick notes, no repeat prescription requests we saw more illness now when the Party says any crap can be seen within 48 hours we are seeing more predictable “illness” like another sick note, another repeat prescription or can I have my blood test results.

Have we missed any other general practice Olympic events that need inclusion? Perhaps there is a solution here or failing that try a NHS Walk In centre?

Praise be to the Party for its central control of what it thinks is important which ignores that which is actually important. The Olympics is meant to leave a sporting legacy in its wake. It needn’t bother for the NHS has beaten it to this legacy as our patients are all such good sports.