I have written before on another thread, my late wife, who was an A&E matron in some of the big hospitals in the East and West Midlands for many years, and gave her whole career to looking after people and the NHS, was essentially finished off by the negligence of our local GP surgery. The GP at the time did everything she could to avoid coming out to see my wife or to offer her the option of being brought into the surgery by me, misdiagnosed her symptoms I had clearly pointed out were sepsis related in my view, and then prescribed her packet antibiotics for cellulitis. 20 days later also my wife was dead from sepsis at 57.
Receptionists at GP surgeries now seem to have taken on the role of surrogate doctors in many cases. I have absolutely no desire to tell a receptionist what is wrong with me, let alone go into details of the symptoms. They are there purely to make an appointment for a patient to see a GP - either on a routine or emergency basis. They are NOT there to nor are they qualified to, make assessments on whether they think patients should be seen by a doctor or not. How this appalling system has been allowed to become the norm is bordering on criminal to me.
When my mum, back in the ‘60s, had what was called then a tubal pregnancy - ironing my selfish father’s shirts at home on a weekend when he was down the pub, seeing another woman, or both, her GP, who knew her by first name (as he did all his patients, had a sixth sense she was unwell, rang her, and when he got no answer, went to our flat, looked through the letter box and saw her collapsed on the hall floor. Because of his actions my mum received medical attention in hospital and although close to death, survived. Can you imagine that situation happening today with the sort of multi-GP surgeries we have now where they don’t even know or care who you are when you walk through the door let alone would worry about you outside of the surgery!! That’s if you can even get anywhere near to seeing one at all.
For me, I have absolutely nothing to do with the surgery I felt responsible for certainly giving my wife a more painful death than she would’ve had, had they intervened at the correct time. I dread even walking past the place. If I want to see a GP now I see one privately via BUPA, and pay well over £100 to do that. Fortunately, from my wife’s misfortune, I am currently in a financial position to be able to do that, but many people, of course, cannot do that, and are stuck with this appallingly incompetent system that we have got worse during and beyond the pandemic. I feel the Pandemic has been a godsend for them, as I think they were actively looking for a definitive excuse to push patients further and further away. Nowadays, post her death, I always see a GP privately. I get half an hour with them, they sit and talk to me take an interest in me, and properly investigate anything that may or may not be wrong with me. This used to be, many years ago, the service you’ve got at your local NHS GPs. No longer.
