GP waiting times in Oxford revealed amidst ongoing recruitment problems

[Northerner]

THOUSANDS of patients are being forced to wait longer than a month to see their GP in Oxfordshire as practices struggle to recruit enough doctors to cope with demand.

With GP numbers in ‘freefall’, coupled with a growing and ageing population, experts have warned of a ‘perfect storm’ as patients struggle to get appointments at packed surgeries across the county.

More than 13,600 patients in Oxfordshire were forced to wait longer than four weeks for a GP appointment in March, according to the latest NHS figures available.

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/1...revealed-amidst-ongoing-recruitment-problems/

 

[mikeyB]

That’s out of a population of around 682,400 or so, including students. So that’s around 1 in 50, or 2% of potential patients. Crisis?

 

[Thebearcametoo]

I’m in north Oxfordshire and we’re having a lot of trouble recruiting and retaining doctors. My surgery is pretty good at getting people in on the day but for a routine appointment it can be a nightmare.

 

[Robin]

West Oxfordshire here. Our GP's senior partner has just retired, and been replaced with a part timer and a locum if you’re lucky. And they were already half a doctor down after a previous resignation. They are trying to recruit. Waiting time for booked appointments is now a month, but people know to make them a month in advance. If you need one on the day, and all slots are taken, you get a phone call, and if necessary a referral to the hub in the next town, so you got seen by someone. (OK if you’ve got transport). The time it does matter is if you’ve got one of those niggles that you’re not sure whether it’s urgent or not. If you wait a month, it’ll either have killed you or got better on its own.

 

[Lilian]

@Robin, I waited a year with one of those niggles, the wait for a doctor's appointment was so long it always seemed to be getting better, but it never did. Finally this year with it getting me down, 2nd April, I phoned for an appointment only to be told that the books for May were not open yet. Nothing in April. I decided one night to go online and was lucky enough to find one for 1st May. It must have been a cancellation as I never saw another one again - I kept trying to see if or when the next one was out of curiosity. The question of long waits for appointments, long queues for receptionist (only one on at a time), not being able to see a nurse, boils down (in our case) to lack of staff. They are employing another nurse but she has to give three months notice from where she is now, not sure what they are doing about receptionists but the worst of all is that they cannot get any doctors. They have advertised for months and have had only ONE reply from a South African doctor living in South Africa. Someone I know who is a receptionist at another practice says the receptionists are quite angry as they have to triage incoming phone calls before making appointments and not being doctors are afraid they may miss something important. After all even doctors can. One of our local NHS doctor surgeries has been closed by the owners, who are an American Insurance Company, because it was not producing sufficient income. Looks like this is here let alone coming.

 

[mikeyB]

That’s what happens when you let private profit making companies into the NHS. That surgery would still be open if it were owned and run as part of the NHS. It’s a service, not a business.