Staff are facing unprecedented assaults, abuse and aggression by patients, with surgeries struggling to cope with “unmanageable levels of demand” after years of failure to recruit or retain sufficient numbers of family doctors.
It's not entirely the failure of recruitment, is it, though...it's the failure of doctors during the two years of lockdown to treat their patients as people, and not walking disease vectors to be avoided at all costs!
Security measures such as CCTV, panic buttons and screens at reception are now increasingly being rolled out across GP surgeries, the Guardian has learned, with senior medics claiming ministers perpetuate a myth that services are “closed”.
Wait, what? Make up your minds - why are patients flocking to surgeries they believe are closed to kick Dr Findlay in the nuts?
Richard Van Mellaerts, a GP in Kingston upon Thames and an executive officer for the BMA’s GP committee, said... “Some sections of the media have driven a view that general practice was closed during the pandemic, which is of course the opposite of the truth. Unfortunately, that opinion has been adopted by some people, and that’s been a driver for some of the aggression. That’s not been adequately quashed by the government, which could have taken the opportunity to be more supportive of general practice.”
Technically, they weren't completely closed, no, but boy, did the majority of them make it absolutely as difficult as possible to get seen.
Insisting, like my surgery, on no walk-ins, keeping the door closed and insisting patients rang the bell to be seen (when one of the lard-arse receptionists could bother to stop chatting away to her chum in the next seat and waddle over to open the door a crack to a freezing pensioner who'd been standing there for 10 minutes).
And yes, Dickie old chum, I witnessed this first hand!
Richard Vautrey, a GP in Leeds and former chair of the BMA’s GP committee, said the officially recorded crimes of violence were only “the tip of a much, much bigger iceberg” of the incidents occurring in general practice. Staff are now facing “often daily abuse”, he said.I'm not in the least surprised. I'm not the type to physically assault someone, but point out in print how much I despise the lazy, cowardly, uncaring GPs at my local surgery, and how I wouldn't micturate on them if they were on fire?
If you even raise your voice slightly and complain in your in annoyance at what they say they slam down the phone and record it as abuse nowadays. God forbid if you make that mistake after hanging on the line for 20 minutes.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder more and more are turning up at A&E.
Here's another: GPs are taking the money and taking the piss.
ReplyDelete"Punch someone over the phone"
ReplyDeleteThat gave me an image of the Beano, with a boxing glove popping out of the earpiece
My GP surgery is normally a very good one. But on my last visit they still had every alternate seat in the waiting room covered with yellow tape, still insisted that I wore a mask and had a sign up outside describing Covid symptoms and saying that, if you have any of these symptoms you can fuck off.
ReplyDeleteOff duty Police officer in waiting room of medical centre, with his young son. Mr Angry having a go at the female receptionist, and then the Practice nurse when she tried to calm the man down. ODPO identified himself and suggested the man either calm down or leave the building. Assault on nurse by Mr Angry. Arrested by ODPO and struggle ensued. Mr Angry held down till more Police officers arrived. Staff and witnesses made statements complaining about the actions of .....the ODPO for using excessive force. Mr Angry fast tracked to see his GP. As a (now retired) Police officer, I wonder what the point is of being a Police officer today?
ReplyDelete"The failure of doctors to treat their patients as people" - we need to get to a position where doctors treat their patients as the paying customers they are. We all pay (heavily) through taxation, yet we're never considered as customers, hence the absolute absence of any concept of service.
ReplyDeleteIt's time the ones who pay the overblown medical piper started calling the tune, instead of standing on the doorsteps like performing circus seals clapping the idle sods.
"No wonder more and more are turning up at A&E."
ReplyDeleteAnd thereby causing bigger and bigger queues for treatment. Why doesn't the Health Secretary get a grip?
"That gave me an image of the Beano, with a boxing glove popping out of the earpiece"
😄
"But on my last visit they still had every alternate seat in the waiting room covered with yellow tape..."
It's ridiculous!
"Staff and witnesses made statements complaining about the actions of .....the ODPO for using excessive force. "
😨🤬
"It's time the ones who pay the overblown medical piper started calling the tune, instead of standing on the doorsteps like performing circus seals clapping the idle sods."
AMEN!