Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugh
Agreed, but longer time slots means seeing less patients…
Less doctors, longer time slots, less appointments
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Well, I suppose it depends doesn't it (though you aren't wrong).
If you know that the appointment for Patient A will take 10 mins but the one for Patient B will be 40, but you can't allocate more than a 10 minute slot for each patient (which means you discard the obvious solution), do you then:
- force B out after 10 minutes, knowing that you're only 1/4 through the way, and that at the best case you'll still need that appointment time with them later anyway
- keep the appointment running ignoring the fact you're over time and that your schedule is full and you will be making all of your subsequent patients who are already waiting at least 30 minutes late. (Which is a cumulative effect on both your schedule through the rest of the day especially if you have more Bs - or even As who need longer - booked in, meaning you'll run late all day and end up finishing late)
Thing is, if you basically neglect patients' needs like anything else the situation can and probably will get worse and then you'll just put pressure on other areas of the NHS anyway due to it not being dealt with properly to begin with. And if they have lost staff (no matter what the cause) then this isn't going to be anything they can fix quickly as even a qualified medic who has completed their first course still then needs to take years specialising as a GP, Effectively you need to know a little about absolutely everything in order to push it down the right path later.
They could theoretically make up some of the more routine or simple tasks by using nurses to triage things before they get to a GP but then I suppose there's a shortage there too.
The working conditions probably aren't favourable - I think a lot of hospitals have their staff doing 12 hour shifts. Which is a long time in itself, when it's a busy job to do to start off, then you have the travelling to and from work, getting sleep before you have to do it again the next day, and the possibility that finishing late will erode your time between shifts anyway. Though given that a 48 hour week is only 4 shifts they probably get more clear days off, it might be better all round to reduce that time to 8 hours and rotate people more often, then they could have more rest between working times which would probably be less tiring and less of a deterrent to people wanting to work there.
The NHS has always had pressures especially at this time of year and needs help sorting them out, covid isn't going to realistically make the cause or effect any better or worse, last year what we saw was mainly covid and an almost eradication of breakouts of flu or noro or other seasonal illnesses which we might see again - but as a lot of vaccinated people probably won't get covid that badly but might get flu, we might see a lot of unvaccinated covid patients mixed in with a lot of flu patients and perhaps the odd few who have been vaccinated but it hasn't worked or the immunity has waned before they could get a 3rd jab... remains to be seen.