Roger Sharp
5/5
What can I say?
The Moatfield Surgery is a catastrophic omnishambles - just like almost every other surgery in the country. The staff all deserve medals for turning up on a Monday morning because at all levels, this is an almost impossible working environment.
I'm sure there must be signs up at the surgery reminding people to be civil and respectful to staff - as indeed they should. But respect is a two way process and things are going to become difficult if patients perceive the GP service as a barrier that is perpetuating their ill health.
Not so long ago, a GP was invariably considered to be a pillar of the local community who was widely respected for their diligence, knowledge and ability to make sick/ill patients better. They were able to do this because they had the power and autonomy to act and shape the services they were responsible for as they saw fit.
How quickly things change. If you ask any GP in the country how the service should be managed, most would say: "Not like this". Moatfield Surgery don't even have control over their own appointment slots - a proportion have to be reserved for other NHS initiatives.
People reaching retirement age who have contributed for around 40 years to the NHS through taxes and NI are amongst the biggest losers. At a time in when ill health is beginning to have an increasingly negative impact on their lives, some with complex and interrelated health conditions, they are turning to the NHS for help only to discover the service is ill-equiped to help them.
Anyone who is ill finds doing very many simple tasks much harder than when fully fit. Just making a phone call can be difficult, let alone having to remember to call at precisely 8:00am - and keep dialling an average of 60+ times to get through. They are then required to leave a detailed account of their problem with the reception staff, and hope that it gets referred to the most appropriate doctor who understands their history best. Please do not tell me that everyone has access to all the information they need so in theory anyone can call them back. That's theory, to the individual it's real life.
It seems that a positive element of the surgery is that the Practice Manager has been in post a number of years. More locally, the practice burns through around 3 per year.
As patients, we have no idea how the surgery views it's progress in maintaining the health of the people for whom it is responsible. This may not be what you want to hear, but amongst people I know personally the view is of multiple areas of unacceptable failure, along with the occasional ray of hope, and things being still on a downward trajectory.
Yes, there are multiple "sticking plaster" solutions for specific situations but the surgery is still the only place where complex chronic conditions can be coordinated.
Finally, patients are beginning to feel as if they are in a "pass the parcel" game between the surgery and A&E at times. This is completely irresponsible because this triples the cost to the NHS of fixing the same problem, and it is unreasonable to futher increase numbers at,say, East Surrey Hospital A&E which have risen massively in the last two years with people who are neither an accident or emergency.
Some time ago I had a set of symptoms that my GP was so concerned about they asked me to visit the surgery immediately. From there, it was suggested I visit East Surrey A&E immediately, which I did. The doctor at East Surrey explained that I needed an MRI scan asap but because of the system rules, he couldn't get a slot. He suggested I book a private scan costing £200 - same scanner, same staff. So I decided to follow his advice and managed to book one the following day. Except when they found out why I needed it, they cancelled the appointment because they only manage routine scans, not emergency ones - and it was the same everywhere else. By this time, I decided that since it was a precautionary scan more than anything, I'd forget about the whole thing. But it shouldn't be the patient making those decisions, should it?
