Article advising GP's to not follow the NICE Guidelines if they are not appropriate for a patient

[tmoxon]

Just seen this and thought it might help with anyone going to their GP gponline.com/gps-patients-c...

[fbirder]

I've left the following comment...

"Already thousands of Pernicious Anaemia sufferers find it difficult to persuade GPs to follow the NICE guidelines for their condition. Now those GPs have the perfect excuse to ignore them. The gold standard needs to be a minimum standard that a patient can expect to receive."

[tmoxon in reply to fbirder]

sorry I took it the other way around.  Why do so many of the GP's simply give the treatment, it seems common sense to me as its cheap to provide and could save lots of money in the long run by preventing people getting misdiagnosed with conditions that cost a fortune to investigate such as MS 

[Gambit62 Administrator in reply to tmoxon]

I think the important bit that needs to be highlighted from the article is the statements about working with patients and that means listening properly to them and what they say about their symptoms and that is what is not happening at the moment.

Doctors are under a professional duty to use their clinical judgement so that isn't saying anything that is new.

[Hidden in reply to fbirder]

Good reply.  Well done. Just editing as it was meant for fbirder!

[pugdogs10]

In other words "do as you like" as they do already. Another cop out.

[Secondchance]

They need to know the NICE guidelines first!

[pugdogs10]

TRUE!

[Polaris]

Fine talk about "clinical judgement" - what clinical judgement if they don't have time or don't wish to take a case history or listen to symptoms - much easier for them to give a drug sold by the latest pharmaceutical rep.

My family's experience is they just want to fob you off with any drug that will earn more money for the surgery or deprive you of what you actually need (more thyroxine/B12) in case they're sued for overdosing and then they can earn even more from worsening symptoms and, say, heart or neurological disease.

Sorry for the angry cynicism but the latest treatment for my relative's severe B12 deficiency is a schizophrenic drug !!!

[fbirder in reply to Polaris]

Except that I've not heard of any GP 'fobbing' people off with any drug that is sold by 'big pharma'. I'm not sure how a surgery can earn more money by prescribing generics. Even non-generics aren't going to earn them any money.

[Polaris in reply to fbirder]

I'm not getting into that with you again FB 😆

Doctors primarily learn how to diagnose and treat disease with drugs or surgery - they're taught very little about nutrients, I suspect because drug companies have huge influence from the top down.

Surgeries appear to be run on money for each disease - e.g. they get a lot more for mental illness, dementia, depression etc. Thyroid disease is one of the least lucrative (and B12 deficiency is probably not even on the list) but the diseases from under treatment are.