Unfortunately, due to high levels of sickness within our team, we are prioritising urgent care only and are unlikely to be able to speak or see anyone with a medical condition or issue which isn't urgent. We appreciate your patience in this matter. Prescriptions will continue to be processed as normal but please give the team longer as we are short staffed in this team also. We will update you when normal service resumes. If you already have an appointment, please keep it unless we inform you otherwise. Many thanks.
Today
Dear Patient
following on from the message we sent you a few weeks ago about staff sickness, unfortunately the situation is even worse due to a Covid outbreak among the team. We are now very short staffed in every area so please do not contact us unless necessary. Please also be patient with the staff who are in who will be working under a lot of pressure. We appreciate your cooperation.
F####### Surgery
Written by
TiggerMe
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It almost feels like they have been saving all this up. Unlike the blue collar workers who have to go on strike to get more money/better working conditions, they just have to put out letters like this. If they had a more realistic view of themselves perhaps we would get a better quality service instead of lip service. Can you tell I am a bit angry?
My niece in London told me earlier that her GP is doing this to it's patients too. It's horrifying that GP surgeries can refuse to offer any service to people who are ill.
It is odd on so many levels... our surgery is about to be taken over in the new year so I think they have just decided to cut back on their efforts, which to be fair were pretty pitiful this last year (senior partner not liked by staff which lead to an exodus) a general disinterest had set in, leaving only the most thick skinned behind.
Hopefully a new team will re-invigorate the situation 🤞
A lot of people are going to die, aren’t they? There are so many life threatening illnesses which begin with mild symptoms. By the time they become horrific symptoms it’s usually too late.
Not sure how we’re going to get out of this spiral.
There are now so many people going private that’s no longer the faster fix people have come to expect. It’s often the same doctors and surgeons working privately as well as for the NHS. There’s a finite number of theatre hours available.
It's an overwhelmed, failing system that needs a complete shake up... the final nail in the coffin is that the staff are no longer willing to put up and shut up 😕
I can’t quite believe it’s 2022, nearly 2023. Wonder what Aneurin Bevan would make of it?
I occasionally mention I used to be a nurse, married to an intensive care nurse who sadly passed away 6 and a half years ago. None of what’s happening now is new, just worse. Things have been getting progressively worse year on year for as long as I can remember. I firmly believe my other half’s death was accelerated by the stress of working in a chronically understaffed and underfunded service. I remember all the times of coming home late (sometimes many hours late), all done for no additional pay.
So I didn’t clap for the NHS during the pandemic. I know how many NHS staff really didn’t want us to. They cared because that’s the way they’re made. But now, many can’t afford to live and conditions at work are consistently unsafe. At a time when we talk endlessly about looking after mental health, that’s unforgivable.
Same here, although I only got halfway through my SRN training before switching to animal nursing. We had pressure on us, even as student nurses (although it wasn’t a university degree in those days-you learned on the job) and I found it very hard to cope with sick humans… My daughter is a qualified midwife and the pressure on her is immense, much worse than my time and she never wanted people to clap for her either. At a time when PPE was a plastic bin bag and the wages were laughable, the last thing she wanted was for people to come out drumming on saucepans with wooden spoons when she was trying to sleep after another rough day…
At a time when PPE was a plastic bin bag and the wages were laughable, the last thing she wanted was for people to come out drumming on saucepans with wooden spoons when she was trying to sleep after another rough day…
Exactly! I never understood why anyone thought it was a good idea.
exactly the same here. Had a real fight to get my 88 year old husband with a bad chest infection seen by our practice paramedic ( I believe) and he prescribed steroids. Looks like he’s needing more medication now so I’m dreading the response. At his age he can’t afford to have long term repercussions.
We’re also told by text they are too busy to see people! Heaven help us all.
Have you tried 111 they are great for advice once you get through (make a cuppa first)?
If you are in an area covered by rapid response teams, they will send out a paramedic as their aim is to keep you away from hospital, they take over your care for 48 hours before handing you back to your GP 🙏
They seem to be able to overrule your GP and force action
111 is also struggling. I called 111 last week. They wanted me to talk to a clinician. 8 hours later I received a call from a call handler to say it could take up to 24 hours for a clinician to call me back !!!
It's remarkable that the supermarkets are open 12 hours a day, seven days a week and sure there's an egg shortage and they've got staffing issues but no signs on the door to not turn up unless you're really in danger of starving.
sadly my health centre send messages like this at least twice a month. “Emergency’s Only”. I hate to be political but if you don’t put funding in, running it into the ground, then private health care gets a boost. This is exactly what the current government want to happen.
I have friends who have worked 30/40 years in the NHS and they tell me it’s slowly been privatised for many years. Bevan will be turning in his grave. Access to free health care for all …….. my a…se 🤬
You are so right... the trouble is the governments have made an ongoing almighty up c##k and need the private sector to bail them out, otherwise they have to raise taxes and lose their seats... especially now the country really is stoney broke
I could debate this all day 😂but I won’t because politics should never be discussed among friends ( as my mum always tells me) and we are all friends here. I feel very sad about the dismantling of the welfare state over the last 40 years. 🙁
When you consider how many people here are taxpayers, the taxes probably would be such small amounts, that we'd hardly notice the pennies missing from our income.
Well, I wonder how many tax payers he imagines there are in each household. There are also other ways of getting tax -VAT etc. I suspect he was trying to frighten us into not supporting the NHS. The richer people would pay more, and senior citizens still pay tax on their income, so I think that amount is an exaggeration - about £500 per person per year. It is, however, a reflection of how inflation has overwhelmed all of us so much. If they had been paid a proper wage every year they have requested it, this amount probably wouldn't be so high; certainly the increase this year would be less noticeable.
Thing is, the country *isn’t* actually stony broke. That’s just what we’re being told. There’s plenty of money for the things they consider important. And even if there wasn’t, it wouldn’t actually be that tricky to raise a bit more cash. It’s a question of investing in the right places and right now, that’s just not considered a priority—and hasn’t been for years.
While that’s undoubtedly true, this all started well before that infamous budget. It started before the war in Ukraine. It started well before the pandemic.
I’m so sick of the spin and the lies and the excuses.
gosh as a former NHS worker I recall both the horrors of Margaret thatchers NHS (long 2yr waiting lists) and the relief of Blair /browns NHS with 18 week waits, 4 hr a&e, and 24/48 hr gp waits. The NHS is the most undermanaged (yes, it’s true) and understaffed resource but ultimately It’s a political decision that is or isn’t supported by voters. My oncology consultant gets letters about me slower than I do as there’s so little admin. You need clinicians, admin and managers and good working conditions in such a complex system.
I'd have to say I find Keir Starmer quite dull generally but I heard him talking about what he believes the NHS needs, not just money but a huge overhaul, as I believe his wife and other family work within the NHS.... they might just be able to save it?... don't know how there other policies would work out though?
The good news is... we are all going to come and stay with you till spring 🤗 if we can smuggle our dodgy pharmaceuticals across... oh, hang on border forces are striking too.... I can't swim that far... perhaps we can find a discarded inflatable to make the crossing 😩
I always believed that the Swedish model of Welfare State is the best Beveridge and Bevan based their model on Sweden ………. However it’s flippin cold there and the taxes are high 🤣
Sounds like everyone is expected to pay towards to seeing GP of specialist
The average cost of a primary care visit is 150 kr-300 kr ($16-$33) and the cost of a specialist consultation, including mental health services, ranges from 200 kr-400 kr ($22-$42).
tried calling GP today as my email asking for endo referral, dose increase and brand change answered by admin@ hasn’t been actioned. Their advice, you need to speak to a GP.
Call…. “Please don’t call unless urgent. Dealing with sick children. If urgent call 999. If not urgent ask a pharmacist. Line 1 for reception….. we are not taking calls, please go online or email. Line 2 for prescriptions….. the prescriptions line closed in 2019. Please email…. “
Emailed different pharmacists email address. Got reply instantly, sorry no notes about your other email to admin@ on file… am chasing will get back to you.
I realise what I want isn’t life and death so I feel bad for taking up their time. Should we settle for not improving our health for the greater good? I feel conflicted 😐 (flat mouth face).
This is a huge city practice with about 10 surgeries 30+ GPs brand spanking new facilities, armies of nursing and admin staff.
This made me decide to book a £30 appointment with Roseway Labs… maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do, self select to not need the NHS 😩 (miserable down mouth sad face)
Mine is down to ‘stand in line at 8am to get an on the day phone appointment if necessary’. No point trying to phone in as all appointments are gone - you have to physically be in a queue in the surgery to even get an appointment. No continuity of care. There’s a severe shortage of GPs and forget seeing an endocrinologist as they only communicate via email to GPs as the waiting lists are too long here. We’ve had a diagnosis after 4 years of misdiagnosis and wrong treatment, with now absolutely no information or advice other than a levothyroxine prescription
I spent 45 mins queuing to have the phone answered in an appointment booking line at a private hospital and managed to get a private consultation with an endocrinologist in 3 days time - who works at the NHS hospital with the long waiting lists…
The system is shattered. I don’t blame the consultants running private clinics at all. I have a friend who has just started doing them as so many people are going untreated otherwise. Most of them only do one evening per week. But because of the crisis in primary healthcare, and then the length of wait lists, by the time they do see people, they are sicker, cost more to treat and take longer to recover. This impacts on employment, on social care, and is economic idiocy presided over by an increasingly clueless government.
absolutely 👏. I get so angry 😡 about this I have to “park” it or I get too stressed. What distresses me the most is that we will end up with a two tier health system where those that can afford private health care will have great treatment and live longer but those that can’t rely on an underfunded broken system. Another example of poor getting poorer and rich getting richer………..my above quote from Bevan says it all.
I haven't got past the fact that when we used to be able to see a Dr they still failed us by there lack of thyroid / menopause knowledge... I switched to self preservation mode 6 months ago.... still angry that we have been paying into a selective system the whole time 😡
I have tried to 'park' this by thinking they still proved an excellent emergency service...😕
Feel cheated having wasted 5 dysfunctional years... since taking control I've regained 80% of me..... mentally fuming though 😡 need to 'let it go' and I might find the missing 20% 🙏
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