Quote:
Originally Posted by Enuff
I was suffering from bad chest pain, so called NHS Direct, who told me to see my GP within the hour. I phoned my GP to make an appointment to be seen within the hour, but the receptionist told me to go to A&E. which I did, and was seen to right away.
I'll know next time to just go streight to A&E.
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I had an almost identical situation Enuff, about a year ago about midnight I began getting bad chest pains, so I rang NHS direct. The guy told me to go straight to casualty, upon arrival I was hooked up to one of those monitors in less than 10mins. To be honest I couldn't fault the treatment I received, I reckon casualty is great on the big stuff but as the original poster says, too many people run there with petty problems that could be sorted by their GPs.
---------- Post added at 01:18 ---------- Previous post was at 01:08 ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mick Fisher
I have to agree with everything you say Arthur but would like to add that I feel people may have lost all faith in their GP's out of hours service which of course just adds to A & E Depts. problems without mentioning the alchohol related stuff.
I have had experience of my GP's out of hours service recently and it was dire. I phoned my local surgery on a Saturday morning as I was having difficulty breathing. I got a recoded message telling me to call a Kettering number. I got through to some service called Key Docs and was able to call out a Emergency Doctor. Well he arrived some 2 to 3 hours later with apologies that he couldn't find a TAXI. He explained he couldn't drive as he was banned for drinking and driving. He kept the Taxi waiting while he examined me. Said he didn't know what was wrong, phoned for an ambulance and cleared off.
Assuming he came direct from Kettering to Rushden just for me that's a round Taxi trip of about 50 miles plus the waiting time.
Utter madness, so I can see that's one reason why people go directly to A & E that could be eliminated with a bit of pressure put on GP's to organise there own out of hours service instead of sub contracting it out.
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In reply to your post of out of hours GPs, one story I read recently in the papers was of this Polish doctor who worked all week in Poland, then for two days he worked in Scotland. The bit I found almost unbelievable was that he regularly went back to Poland between shifts!, making his working day in excess of 18 hours. If you are a lorry driver you have set rest periods, surely the same should apply to doctors?