Forest Hill Road GP practice failings - patients' meeting tomorrow

[FredCasa]

Just google "increased pressure on GPs".

[dds29]

Absolutely FredCasa. In more than 20 posts above, you are the only one that has referred to the massive ideologically driven upheaval the NHS has been undergoing since 2012. We are now beginning to experience the fall out.

I have been with the FHGP for 30 years, and have only very recently had difficulties similar to those mentioned.

I went to the meeting last night, and all these grievances were discussed, with positive outcomes. Look out for the minutes on the website in due course, and please consider attending the meetings in future.

The predominant reason for the 'drop in ratings' (very trip Advisor) is recruitment. Not in small part due to massive workload. When the previous manager left in January to take up another position, it took until late this year before a non-temporary manager was appointed.Similarly it is very difficult to recruit GPs. And here we are back to the 2012 act, NHS England et al.

[mynamehere]

Really great post dds29. Thanks. I'm there as well.

[EDmummy]

I will be attending their patient forum but I warn them to wear their hard hats!

[Milhouse]

My son is registered there and I have had a mixed experience. The clinical staff are great, the midwifery team superb and on the whole the practice staff are ok. They've always been accommodating when it comes to booking an appointment but there is certainly room for improvement. One example was taking my little one in as a one year old and having to wait for over an hour as the reception staff had forgotten to let the practice nurse know we had arrived.

I understand that there are thousands of contributing factors to the difficulties faced by GPs. Not least that the NHS simply doesnt have the capacity to truly be a health service. It's become an illness treatment service.

Having spent a fair amount of time working in the NHS over the last year, I can also say that I've been surprised by my experience of GP focus being so heavily weighted toward renumeration and financial incentive as opposed to patient care. I won't say that's the case everywhere as that would be unfair but from what I've seen in one specific borough it certainly caught me off guard.