Why has it become the new normal to verbally abuse #nhs staff? My thoughts on the matter A 🧵 @Parody_RCGP @DrSimonHodes @danielgoyal @DrYvetteDocGP @DrSelvarajah @DrShanHussain

Pretty much sums up the current situation for GPs Seen on Facebook 😂😂

Celebrities, rich people and ex-prime ministers should not make health policy. Prostate cancer screening is just not as simple as some are making out. There are real harms caused when people are treated unnecessarily.

Just heard on the ten o clock news waiting lists are falling. In totally unrelated news - on a daily basis we receive another query from a patient who has been removed from a waiting list without their consent. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out Wes #NHS

The sheer volume of work we get means that I have to log on most evenings & weekends. Not that uncommon in the professional world I guess, except that most people don’t have the public chastising them for being lazy part-timers. I’m physically in practice two days a week. I work at least five. Just logged off today and I’m utterly exasperated by the dumps on me by other organisations who seem to think everything is my job because it’s easier or they don’t know what to do. Requests for specialist referrals for a patient that has been with them for a couple of weeks with minimal information on why. The team they want referral to is in the same hospital. Asks for us to do capacity assessments on patients & let the specialist know that the patient declining the treatment they recommend is making an ‘unwise decision’ rather than a capacity issue. Arrange a MASH for a patient I know nothing about. Urgently prescribe medication for a patient a NP has literally just consulted with in clinic. Does secondary care think that we’re sitting around waiting for work? Holding spare capacity to do their job? Believe that all things administrative are the role of the GP? This is what will drive me out of general practice. Not the govt (close second). Not the media. Not the patients. It’s the incessant dumping on us. The total lack of respect for our time. The complete ignorance as to what we do. The treating of us as if we are community juniors. The unreasonable expectations they set for patients from us. Once upon a time we were on the same team. Now, they seem hell-bent on breaking us. The consultants are least responsible for this. It’s the lower-skilled, narrow-trained, don’t-know-what-else-to-do doctor subs that are the worst. I am sending all the tasks back, because that’s the only way to educate & change practice, but it’s exhausting. It’s not good for patients either, but they should never have done it & it needs to change for the benefit of population health.

Waiting lists are falling because they are being manipulated. 1 in 4 GP referrals to specialists are to be rejected. How do you have the gall to stand there crowing about the state of the NHS @AlexBallingerMP?

Objectively and subjectively, my speciality (GP) has a foot on its throat and in the direst state since I’ve been a doctor. It got worse since the election. A lot.

A message for @wesstreeting We know you’re busy with residents, and probably consultants soon, but could you spare a few hours to have GP chats please? Basically, we need you to say ‘get on with it’. We know what we’re doing and we know how to do it. By all means chuck in a few useful parameters such as personal lists and continuity, which have a decent evidence base, but access requirements will only detract from GP-delivered care. You need to trust us. I don’t know what you think our motivation is, but I can assure you it’s patient wellbeing.

🧵A "quiet" Friday morning in general practice. Real numbers from one small rural GP surgery in Surrey. Post-Easter, skeleton crew, nothing dramatic. This is what quiet looks like. @doctor_katie @Parody_RCGP @medicalmodelbri @DrSteveTaylor

The government has wasted £3bn on the cost of the doctor strikes. They could have used that money to resolve the dispute and still have billions left over. Even the £300m cost of this current strike could have been put into a deal and there would be no strikes. Mismanagement.

This aged well…

Where has been your support for overwhelmed GPs Instead you have pilled on the pressure Failed to listen to concerns & use the media to spin a negative narrative I have never been so disappointed with Government in 30year of being a GP You are failing patients, work with GPs

In the wake of the unfunded ask to do more , see more and treat more patients - why does funding in GP matter and why are we in crisis as a result @DrSteveTaylor @Parody_RCGP @doctor_katie open.substack.com/pub/davetr…