This morning I received an email from the NHS telling me I should have a 4th covid booster but I need a letter from my GP or consultant to take with me.
So I telephoned the GP to request one only to be told that our particular health centre don’t issue such letters and that I should consult my consultant. I must admit that I was getting a bit frustrated with the attitude of the receptionist and asked her to look at my record to tell me the name of my consultant. Of course there wasn’t one ! So she booked a telephone consultation with a GP who has recently joined the practice for Monday.
Many local residents agree our health centre is not fit for purpose. In order to see a nurse for bloods or whatever you have to sit outside in all weathers under a wind-blown canopy until you’re called in. I am not aware that our GPS are actually seeing anyone face to face. There are rumours they are seeing people privately!
I recently described a 90 year old’s awful experience on our local forum - it had 77 reactions of agreed disgust and 84 comments which mirrored this lady’s frustration.
Don’t bother advising me to contact our MP - done that!
Or the local health watch - done that too!
Sorry for this ramble - it gives me a chance to offload my frustration!
Regards
Ann
Written by
AnniesRyder5
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
Email the Practice Manager with a complaint - just tidy up the post you wrote. They are obliged to follow it up and if they do not deal with it - there is another level.
I had a letter sent about two months ago from Nhs saying as I was considered vulnerable I was eligible for the fourth jab. They called it second booster on my card
I’ve ‘found’ my letter from RJAH Hospital & am going to print the NHS email out plus my Record Card clearly states 3rd Vaccine so l’ll have that with me too….
I just don't get it - I see my GP f2f whenever I need, I get to go into the waiting room. The only people who have to wait outside are people turning up for Covid tests and she is inside with a window open to take the swab. Why's the UK got such a problem?
No problem at all at my surgery, when OH now became ill, I rang at 8 am, they saw him that same day, blood tests next day, saw another doctor week later. When I said on the phone that I was worried because nothing was working and he was worse, they rang him within 30 mins....he will be checked when his months meds are nearly up....I can only praise them for being so quick....if one surgery can do it, why not more.....
My surgery is tip top. My friend's husband had to go into Addenbrookes by ambulance recently with heart problems and received brilliant care and treatment. She cannot praise the nhs enough. Unfortunately this is not always the case.
Surely there is a rule or at least guidance on how GP surgeries are run. GMC or BMA perhaps? I know pharmacists for example have their own membership based organisation that governs everything even down to disciplinary hearings so Doctors’s must have too. If the leaders of those organisations could read some of posts on here perhaps they would act - who knows, who knows if they care. It seems that surgeries are businesses now and the less people they see or help the less it cost and the more they save.
Professionally speaking yes. But they turned themselves into businesses and have no training on that. Plus, most business practises are difficult to reconcile with patient care and that is probably where things go wrong. They are ordered to have 10 min slots as being "cost effective" - I even "heard" someone say recently they can only have 5 min slots - so haven't time to address the patient's problem properly, especially when it is complex. so they need another appointment which probably won't be with the same doctor so you start from scratch all over again, particularly since some of diagnosis comes from minor changes in demeanor, appearance in general, that different doctors can't be aware of.In the last 7 years I have only seen the same GP unless she was on holiday - but like most people, I don't go for something then unless it is a real emergency or a prescription or I go to the other practice which shares access to my notes and where I do know the GP a bit. Always the same rheumy and almost always the same cardiologist. And it makes such a difference.
Yes my surgery offers 5 minutes per appointment, following my leg injury October 2020 when I eventually got an appointment with GP in March 2021 my 5 minute allowance was taken up by me limping from the waiting room to the consulting room🤣( can’t use crutches due to arthritis in all joints)
Similarly at the scan a few months later which was UPSTAIRS - no lift, it took longer for me to get to the scan than the actual process.
Even now at physio where they do give you 40 minutes or so, they come to the waiting room, shout your name and then disappear into a labyrinth of corridors with me limping like mad to catch up🤣
I asked for the same GP who actually arranged blood tests but was told he was not available and to go with a different one who could always read my notes!
There seem to be various (including NHS England), rather than one in particular, which is why there may be so many problems. This from CAB gives some advice - citizensadvice.org.uk/healt...
There was a programme on TV recently, I think it was Dispatches, about the broken NHS. They said the NHS is presented as being the best in the world and it is treated as god like and can do no wrong. We have limited equipment compared to other countries, particularly scanners. When errors are made everyone clams up. The effect is that the same errors are made again and again. The conclusion was that they should start putting the patient first. Currently the patient has to go from pillar to post to make it easy for the NHS and it should be the other way round.
There was something on FB the other day about EU people leaving the UK and mixed race couples being stopped from moving back to the UK after years abroad. One such couple had been in France for over 30 years, the man was 80 and French. I questioned what on earth they wanted to move and someone came up with the usual "Free healthcare". Loads of people really do believe the NHS is the only system that provides healthcare free at the point of delivery. I had problems getting help with David - all Covid related - but I really don't imagine it would have been much better in the UK and for similar reasons, too many people needing too few resources.
It is certainly on its knees - money has to come from somewhere to renew the broken infrastructure.
I am not certain the main problem is just money. The inefficiencies are rife. The admin is horrific. We pay ridiculous sums to external consultants and to agencies for staff. We don’t have a decent computer system. Our GPs run their own little fiefdoms separate from the NHS. They should be included as part of the NHS and money directed to them. Basically it is a great monolith. Sad really as we do have some of the best surgeons in the world.
Thought recently they said GP's may have to go back to being employed by NHS istead of separate contracts....OH answer to this country's problems is too many people on a small island!......housing, health, everything!.
GPs have never worked for the NHS. They refused when Bevan set up the NHS. Various governments have talked about getting them to over the years. It would be so much better from a communications point of view.
Again I agree All I need is a letter from someone/ anyone at the health centre but they “don’t do them” apparently because I should request one from my consultant - which I haven’t got because they’ve never referred me!!!
So instead of being efficient and asking someone in admin to give me a letter I have had to book a telephone consultation for next Monday with a GP I’ve never talked to before.
However I’m reassured she will have access to my notes- so that’s ok then!
They wrote a letter for me when I saw a consultant privately. I turned up for the appointment, no letter. When I asked the surgery about it they said they had it waiting for me, but had not bothered to tell me. I assumed they had mailed it.
Trouble is the previous restructures were an utter disaster - having been working when some were done.
But there was a fundamental flaw that went on for a long time: new hospitals were built with fewer beds because Tesco management worked on the principle that patients would be in hospital for shorter times because of efficiencies. But of course - they weren't! There are various reasons but we had to write protocols providing timings to the minute for procedures but you can't do that - every patient is different and just because you can do an endoscopy in x minutes for one patient doesn't mean you can for all. Nor do all patients recover in the same time after surgery and not everything can be done successfully as day surgery. My daughter had some complex surgery a couple of years ago, one of the 3 surgeons told her she'd be home tonight! No way, they didn't have the pain under control and she had an hour's drive home. In fact she was in for nearly a week because of something or other and they had to find a bed. And then you have the dreaded bed-blocking where patients can't be discharged home on their own or because there are stairs to cope with. There was fury recently because hotels were being used - for just that sort of patient who was fine if there was someone on the premises who could answer a call but wasn't fine home alone. A hotel room with DB&B costs a fraction of a hospital bed to run.
My experience of working as a chaplain in the largest acute hospital trust in the UK, is that the vast majority of people there working in the NHS are very dedicated indeed. (There are in any organisation a few rotten apples…)
Not a lot you can tell me about people working in the NHS - I worked in or around it much of my working life as did my husband and both daughters, their partners and now their children!
Ah - terrific - you must be very proud of them. I was only in it for 7 years full-time but loved it and wished I had done it earlier. My Dad was involved with the Marsden for 30 years and I was baptised in the chapel there - got into my blood then I think.
My youngest when aged 9 was told her operation would just be a nick and a bandaid. 8 days later I discharged her because they had viruses on the ward. The GP was to come out same day of discharge and asked how her op for appendicitis had gone. She had had an op on her leg for a Brodies Abcess…. Whoops
Frightening isn’t it? I remember a good few years ago having brought my baby home and opted to feed her myself but I was failing - my GP had prescribed milk suppressant tablets!
Agreed and I really felt like saying- why don’t they ask the doctors and nurses to sit under the flimsy wind blown canopy for a change!Of course I didn’t for fear of being struck off!
A lot of that program is on YouTube. It showed hospital care and it was frightening....beds in the hall.....not one or two beds, but several and people waiting over 8 hours to be seen.
I think that might have been a different programme, but probably putting over a similar point. This one was more looking at errors made and the NHS attitude of cover up compared to other countries.
I imagine it’s a postcode lottery, as with so many thing. My GP surgery is in south west London and is brilliant. If you’re prepared to hang on phone for 10 minutes you can get through, the receptionist passes you to a nurse, or arranges s for a doctor to call you back. I am about to try the letter thing for the 4th jab…
You mean the sit-down? But then they are cut off and have to do it all over again. By which time all today's appointments are gone. And it costs if it is a real phone not a bundle of mins on a mobile ...
Only because I know a LOT of the problems are due to year on year cutting of budgets (Tesco management we called it) and false economies for the last 15+ years. If that hadn't been done, we wouldn't be where we are now. It DOES need money, new money, proper money, from somewhere. Many problems derived from the "market" culture - not a particular political party can be blamed, TB was as bad as anyone else. But healthcare isn't something where private companies should be allowed to make money for shareholders ... One thing buying in services - but the suppliers must be subject to the same regulation and standards as the NHS who couldn't match private bids because they weren't on a level playing field.
But this concept of having to keep trying until you get through early enough really isn't good enough. Something that was not too bad but needed something done could be so much worse by the time the GP gets to comment. It seems to be having a dreadful effect on A&E with patients having become ill because they couldn't get primary care.
I would have to try for over an hour to get through to the surgery. Eventually, after many many complaints, the surgery installed a new telephone system. Great, we all thought and, indeed, you can now get through almost immediately. Unfortunately the same stupid appointment arrangement still exists so there are no GP appointments available. So the whole stupid scenario starts over the next day. I had a dreadful skin problem diagnosed over the phone (???!!!) by my GP who surprise, surprise got it wrong. So I took myself off to see a Dermatologist privately but I simply cannot afford to do this every time. The NHS is broken.
When we were returning from SwedEn after Christmas we had to wait over an hour in minus five temperature to get our PCR test so we could fly home and it cost £100 each!
Not in England I am afraid I have friends and neighbours who are fed up trying to see a doctor.I booked my 2nd shingles vaccine yesterday and I got the third degree, who sent you,who told you to come etc, needless to say I asked for the receptionist name, and was asked why…..
Our surgery has a sort of canopy outside with a couple of plastic chairs lying around, usually damp from rain or icicles. There is a howling draft along the area to make matters worse. I know that at least one of our GPs runs a private health clinic locally.
that is good when it works, we have that system here in a hospital for my Rheumy appointment, Was given a link I had to press on my mobile to say I had arrived in the car park, and they would phone me back to " invite " me in when there was room in the waiting room, except they had forgotten to actually do that, After 30 mins I went to reception to inquire and was told off for being LATE for my appointment, after spending all that time sitting in my car only to drive 20 miles home again, I must admit I did go ballistic , , but still had to drive home. I was given another app for a couple of weeks later but this time I refused to press any links on my phone but marched straight into reception !
I rang my doctors and got put through to Admin who sorted a letter out for me to take to the drop in vaccination centre. Maybe I am lucky with my surgery
But we shouldn`t be lucky, it should be the norm...it`s health we are talking about.....I do know we are having thousands of houses built in Norfolk over the next few years, and the surgeries are complaining they won`t cope....well a lot aren`t coping now!
To be honest I used to be quite fearful of the idea that privatisation of the health service is on the cards. But how could it be worse? We won’t be paying any more but be on a par with France for example where better health services are provided.
Depends on the way they choose to finance it. If they go US-style it will be a disaster for people like us with pre-existing conditions. Most of Europe has a mix - with a basic compulsory affordable level of cover for everyone under a certain income level. Then you can choose to take out top-up private insurance if you like and can afford it. And you can combine the state funded and the private. You can't do that in the UK - all one or all the other. I think the decline of the NHS started when they took pay-beds out of NHS hospitals. In Germany when I lived there I had tests done using the privately funded equipment - at midnight at times but I could have it on state-of-the-art equipment.
I believe it is...called the Affordable Care Act. Some people still chose not to have the insurance....a self employed friend chose not to have any insurance and he began to have abdominal pain. He then decided to sign up with his prior good insurance...problem was it was August and he couldn't enroll until January 1 last year. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last January 2 and is now deceased.
Not quite - one daughter is the equivalent of a junior doctor in the ED, one is a nurse, one grandson is training as a pharmacist and the other as a nurse. And the granddaughter is working as a home carer. Son in law was in the ambo service but now highway patrol and former SILis a paramedic. His niece has just qualified as a nurse - his mother was a midwife, It's scary!!!
I tried that and he made all the right noises, wrote to the Health Centre and the result was the Health Centre wrote a message in our local village magazine rebuking us all and saying they were doing the best they could!! So we all doffed our caps and retreated into our homes and tried not to bother them again!!!
You only need to show your letter saying you were invited for a third primary but I didn’t even have to show that. I went to a walk in centre and they looked up my records while there and said as long as it was over 8 weeks I could have the vaccine.
My 90 year old father (with Alzheimer’s) fell several times on Tuesday and I rang the surgery to be told they couldn’t take more appointment bookings that day. I was told to ask online the following morning. Apparently you can only make requests between 7:30 and midday Monday to Thursday and 7:30 and 11:00 am Friday. So Wednesday morning I got up 7:20 (you’ll all appreciate mornings are difficult) hacked into my father’s email so I could log in to their system. BUT I have to say I got a phone call an hour later, an appointment for that morning and the doctors and nurses were absolutely brilliant. A 20 minute appointment was allocated and he was there for one and half hours with follow up home visits the following day. The NHS working at its best.
Hi Annie, I had a letter for the 4th jab (had it last Saturday). I didn’t have to take my letter with me, booked the appointment with the link in the letter. So long as it is 3 months since your 3rd jab everything is ok. They have your records when you sit with the person doing the jab. Check your email to see if their is a web site for the opportunity to book an appointment. Contact the NHS direct to book the appointment, they do the vaccinations. Hope this is of some help. Best of luck.
Thanks Fats but unfortunately I only have the NHS email to tell me I need the 4th jab and a letter from my GP or my consultant and that’s where the never ending circle starts! Our health practice declines to make any Covid referrals and I’m not under a consultant because I’ve never been referred. The excellent GP who originally diagnosed me and managed my condition has left!
I received that email too. I have been a volunteer vaccinators since September. You can go to any walk in center and you will get the vaccine. One of the screening questions is, "Are you immunosuppressed". When you say yes you will get the jab.
I too received a text and an email. Follies the link to discover that there are no appointments available!! However a little Google led me to a local pharmacy and I booked despite the absence of a letter. The pharmacy said the email and text are fine. I did call to check. We live in a paperless society now and really I did not expect a letter. So book and then check to be sure. Good luck.
I have recently watched a webinar for my other complaint which also makes me auto compromised.
The excellent consultant there told us to go to a drop in centre with any piece of paper you have that says you are in the extremely vulnerable group. Some have just taken the card from their previous covid jabs. Most have been given it there and then.
I will be trying this next week.
My friend just showed his text and that worked perfectly.
I’m quite chuffed now because I tried ringing the NHS 119 again and this time i got a different response- I was told I don’t need a letter and he actually booked me in for Monday next👍 So I’m happy I’m bypassing our useless health centre😀
Same here. Excellent surgery. They rang me. I didn't even have to ask.
I received the email from the NHS yesterday, my practice said they will be contacting me shortly, it was all in hand. Wouldn't it be more cost effective for me to just take the NHS email along to my local walk in centre and get my 4th jab? I'm on their computer anyway so they can easily check.
Chris l had that email yesterday but it still says to take your letter stating you qualify. I had an appointment last Monday at the GP’s but l wasn’t up to it & l needed blood tests the next day - so l postponed it - l plan to dig out my letter & go to the Walk In Centre on Monday.
Be interesting to see how you get on. Going through the booking link it clearly states you need a doctors letter for the fourth jab. I'm tempted to turn up at our local walk in centre and see what happens.
I would say you will get it. They are not overrun. When in the Que for mine they were asking if people had appointments . It was 3/4 NO. But not everyone was there for the 4th.
I am so very lucky with my surgery - South West - they actually phoned me to say I was due for my forth Vaccine jab and gave me an appointment for next Wednesday to come in to have it done . they have always been on the ball for my other problems - PMR etc etc - so cannot complain, If my surgery can do it why not others ? Best of luck and good wishes Annies Ryder5
“If my surgery can do it, why not others?”..good question, but not all surgeries are the same are they?
They range from small rural areas - maybe be one village with 1 or 2 GPs (or like ours [5 GPs] one village and part of country town where there are probably 6 other surgeries) through to being in a town/city centre with 20 GPs.
It’s like shopping in a local village shop and a supermarket! One cares about and knows its patrons more than the another…..
Tough one this. I think there is going to be variation how different surgeries approach the current and somewhat unprecedented situation (if you leave aside the Spanish Flu pandemic circa 1917, but as per usual little was learned ask Superman Obama who banged on about a potential pandemic and did nothing). As for reforming the NHS? I worked in it for more than 30 years and saw more reformations than your average Renaissance historian, result?, more and more money shovelled into it's gaping maw, duplication, departments ruled by little Emperors building fiefdoms and an almost evangelical hatred of any private sector involvement. It isn't just a "service" it is a Socialist political weapon that attracts the same sclerotic resistive practice you will find is replete in any Communist society. Answer? ask Liddle, Tesco couldn't fix it.
I had a text to say I was due my booster, but as I had already had it I rang up the number on the text to inform them. Lady said are you immunsuppressed ? Well I'm on steroids I said .Oh that will be it then you will need your 4th. So she booked me an appointment there and then .I went along was asked if I had a letter, no I said ,only the text with my appointment. They looked at it and in I went .
It just sounds like our doctors, I have been trying for 18months to see my doctor, quests what a doctor who does not know me or my history, quite frustrating
My how awful for you,i did not have a letter i phoned the no for vaccines (in Scotland) and explained my rheumy told me i was to get 4th Vaccine,not a problem he booked apt right away.Hope you get it sorted.x
Surely people should complain to the NHS Trust area you are in Things have gone worse in our rural practice and we, the community, have taken them to task and they have improved a bit, but a way to go yet. Trouble is if you are feeling ill you don't really feel like taking them on. Letters to your local paper might help. But you have to get all the complainers to put it in writing to the Trust. Good luck!
Many times I applaud your system in England, your NHS. Sorry, you are going through this frustration but it seems the same 'across the pond'. I spend a lot of time fighting for what is my right with my health care insurance here I think there is an algorithm in the computer when you turn 80 that say..."deny, deny,deny". It doesn't seem to matter whether it is medicine or tests....thank heaven we have a place to vent~!
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
Oh the frustration 
Wooziness - what’s the cause?
Care for GCA reverting to GP from Rheumy?
