Have you noticed . . .

Have you noticed any changes in your general practice surgery that have occurred slowly and subtly over the years and crept up on you whether you work there or are a patient there? 

Have you noticed that at the end of evening surgeries when people used to finish at 18.00 you once used to spend some time talking with staff,  partners and busy working patients who came in to collect their prescriptions on their way home from work and started to wind down but they no longer do so? Instead do you now notice that most staff and partners sneak out of the building in stealth mode desperate to get home unnoticed for fear of being given yet another bit of work?

Have you noticed that your support staff now hate coming to work? Before they used to enjoy the interaction with patients most of whom were pleasant and a few were nasty but now the reverse is the case.

Have you noticed how staff try to avoid answering the phone especially after all the book on the day appointments that political retards have demanded and some still do because they fear the abuse they will have to endure when there is no instant relief for the punter’s demands for instant self gratitfication free at the point of abuse?

And yet self centred patients never take the time to wonder why the phones are not answered apart from the obvious that every other patient thinks the same as they do?

Me, me, me and only me and I am the only one who is “ill”, it’s an emergency, pick up the f**king phone NOW. (Sorry very naughty grunt word endured free at the point of abuse by reception staff every day at no cost to the punter).

Have you noticed that you get comments from your staff on a regular basis of this is the first time they have laughed all day because of a comment passed to them about a problem? “First time I laughed all day because of what you just said”.

What kind of job has that working environment when this is said at 15.00 after a 07.30 start for some? And the day will not finish until 20.00 and hard working people struggle to see their GPs who are open for a minimum of 10.5 hours a day in contrast to their politician who is available to them face to face for a couple of hours a month?

Remember that GPs and their staff are hard working people so when do they see their GPs? Or their dentist/lawyer/accountant et al who have studied less, worked less hours than doctors and do not have to offer 48 hour access for any crap whatsoever?

Have you noticed that those that you started with many years ago and who used to work full time now suddenly lose interest in patients and want to work part time and “spend more time with their families” after ignoring them for years when they were junior and now realize their loss for increasingly little gain? Or that senior partners are retiring earlier than their predecessors and cannot wait to go?

Many say they will do some sessions after their retirement but most lose interest very quickly and don’t preferring quality time to patient time.

Have you noticed that partners, practice managers and other staff are coming in on days off or at weekends to do paperwork or see lab results that once used to be easily dealt with during the working day? Do your staff comment that they notice post once returned on a daily basis now sometimes comes back 2 weeks later after it was date stamped and that the volume of post has doubled in the past few years while those able to read it has fallen?

No doubt a paperless NHS will plug the deficit here but not the huge one between the ears of the idiots that thought it up. Paperless yes but doctor less as well? 

Have you noticed the size of your practice complaints’ file go from a document wallet with a few letters a few years ago to a ring file binder stuffed to full?

Have you noticed how patients no longer come to the doctor with an illness for a diagnosis and treatment but with a want and a demand? If they do not get what they want when they demand it then the complaint follows just like children at a supermarket checkout wanting their sweeties.

Have you noticed that once people would trust what the doctor said and wait but now they demand 3 appointments in a week because their self limiting illness has not got better?

Some will insist on 3 appointments in 36 hours for the same reason and others 3 on the same day all free at the point of abuse and displacing real illness. So if you cannot get an appointment it might not be the doctors’ or the receptionists’ fault?

This is becoming increasingly common to the point that a third of book on the day appointments have been seen in the last week with the same condition.

Have you noticed how patients always know more than you for the patient is always right? And patients expect treatment better than you would get? Someone has died/got divorced/is ill and I want 6 months off but you would have had under the same circumstanes only taken a week or two tops?

And when you tell patients this they go ballistic for you have disrupted their Party funded work avoidance plan accessable via employment law with a get out of work free card called a sick note? No wonder the UK is so unproductive.

Have you noticed that some of your partners and staff chuck sickees to extend their time off before Bank Holidays or annual leave to avoid any extra time dealing with patients?

And yet persue extra work to maintain income via jobs that are a lot less stressful than NHS General Practice and more profitable and enjoyable?

Have you noticed that more people in your practice are taking prescription drugs acting on the central nervous system to enable them to cope with a job that was previously copable without such medication? 

What has changed? Illness or political interference? 

If you have noticed none of the above my friend then clearly you are in the only practice that politicians and the Daily Mail think runs the whole of the UK’s general practice.

Praise be to the Party for always telling things as they are in Narnia and completely missing the point of the reality of General Practice in the UK at present.