Would you like to help shape primary care in London?

[BethanyBateman]

GPs everywhere have faced huge challenges over the past year or so and continue to do so. In London, GPs are looking for ways to face these challenges and make improvements to the service they are providing.

This Wednesday (3, September), the BLF will be meeting with GPs from across London to discuss a new set of standards, which will set out what services patients can expect to receive from their GP practice in future. The meeting will focus around three key areas:

•Accessible care – ensuring that you can book appointments easily, at the time you want and with the doctor or nurse that you want.

•Co-ordinated care – all of the people involved in your care should work together

•Proactive care – preventing treatable conditions and helping you to make healthy choices

Do you have a view on any of these areas of care? It is really important to us that we represent your views and opinions at this meeting so please tell us what you think.

It’s fantastic that GPs are taking these steps to improve care and that they’ve asked the BLF to be involved. I hope you agree that this is a great opportunity to help them get it right. I look forward to hearing your ideas on this topic

Best wishes,

Bethany

[Hidden]

Gps need to get with the times befour private companys comes along.. Like better opening hours or even more compassion willingness to help

Its not like compasion cost much .. Yer i accecpt the under pressure but nothing worse than pressure and health concerns

i find it hard to have any sympathy myself ... Not threw malus but my bitter experiance when at my lowest and most vulnerable when i needed help and compassion

[BethanyBateman in reply to Hidden]

Hi Daz, this is really helpful, thank you. I'm just sorry you haven't been shown compassion when you needed it most. I really hope that consultations like this one will help to change that in future.

[Hidden in reply to BethanyBateman]

Hi cheers yer i know the not all like that .. After all have seen quite a few now and ther are good ones its just unfortunate a seen horrible ones first

But will say bad one's have lasting effect in my experience as you think if they had not been as mean could anything more been done early

Which makes me wonder or even philosophise given my own problems and my own demise and being rememberd are you acculay better off being nice or horrible.

Makes you wonder about that saying about only the good die young

A bet there are quite s few wonderd that too

Anyway thanks great post

[FarmerD]

Do they not first need a usable internet programme,which the Tories completely failed to provide,in order to amalgamate all our various healthcare initiatives?D.

[Tazzy2]

Profit,profit, profit and the idea of make it cheap despite what the patient wants or may need is not care and compassion.

I have been pushed to the point where I see meetings like this as window dressing.

[juney_99_antique]

I would like GP's to consider much more the service which they actually give. My practice has a so-called Chest Clinic which I attend once yearly but I am never satisfied with the care I receive from the respiratory nurse. She does spirometry, discusses nothing and leaves me for another year except when I have to insist on having something for difficulty with breathing. Not once have I had a sputum test, not once has she discussed various inhalers. In fact, on the last occasion when I saw her and suggested a different inhaler she insisted it was not on the market, had not been passed for general consumption and just generally I came away feeling the whole thing was a waste of time. I, in fact, knew that it WAS on prescription but all fell on deaf ears!

It is fine to give these people positions of responsibility but surely they must be capable of doing the job. They are paid extra money for each person with lung problems but don't seem to do any research into anything! There are lots of different medications out there and surely the respiratory nurse should know something about them.

It is like everything else, it is all down to money. It is not always lack of money but the fact that GP's would prefer to keep most of the money to themselves.

We are not stupid and I for one absolutely resent being treated as such. I am not a doctor but that does not mean to say that my intelligence is any less than theirs and that is the feeling I always have when I attend my surgery.

[BethanyBateman]

Thank you all for your feedback, this is really valuable. We will use this, along with the stories that we have been told from other people living with lung conditions, at today's meeting.

[Hidden in reply to BethanyBateman]

Cheers yep be looking forward to hearing how things went

[BethanyBateman]

Hi all - just a quick update on yesterday's meeting.

We met with NHS England (London) and a range of other charities to discuss the proposed standards for primary care. Overall we felt that the proposed standards were going in the right direction and addressing the issues that we’ve been told about by many people living with a lung condition. For example, easier access and better co-ordinated care.

However we fed back that the quality of primary care is often variable. As some of you mentioned, some GPs and nurses are very knowledgeable about lung conditions but some are not.

We also fed back that we had doubts about how these changes will be funded in the current economic climate. Apparently NHS England is doing more work on this and will hold a wider public consultation later in the year – we’ll share more details with you when we have them.

Thanks again for all of your comments.

Best wishes,

Bethany