Originally Posted by demented

I think greencreeper is pretty much spot on, with regret I say as I think the GP service was better in the past but unfortunately it's now very outdated and poor value for money for the general population. It pretty much seems to cater for small children or elderly and even then they often don't get the support they need.

Your joke about thousands of people having tests I don't find particularly amusing as I believe that a lack of diagnosis processes is one of the fundamental problems.

The idea that we'd end up with millions of hypochondriacs is a ridiculous one too. Plenty of people don't like visiting the GPs, you have a quota system where you have to redial for half an hour and are informed by a sometimes snooty and rude receptionist to try again tomorrow. If you're lucky enough to get an appointment the doctor will tell you that it is unlikely you have condition x, you're fine go away unless it gets worse and subsequent times repeated message. I'm rarely ill, I don't bother medics for ordinary things such as sore throats that I used to get quite often (others get colds or bugs often). When something is seriously wrong I have reasonable grounds to go and seek an opinion I think. I think millions of people are the same and it is not much to ask.

To those who think I'm paranoid there's an ever growing list of friends and relatives that have gone to GPs after suffering symptoms for a while with a theory about what they have to ask for an opinion and the GP has told them to hop it. These are diabetes (x2), kidney stones (x2), reflux, fits, angina, stroke (x2). In each case after even more serious symptoms appear (too late in some cases) it was later agreed grudgingly that the patients weren't delusional.