"GP's with varying amounts of experience acting like muppets"
- Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room.
- Don't call just because it's Monday morning and you are busy. We are too!
- Don't call just because it's Friday afternoon and you want to go home.
- Don't call because it's 18:30 and you want to go home.
- Don't call for chest pain and leave alone in a side room.
- Don't call for 'chest pain' just to get a quick response for your panic attack.
- Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room.
- Don't call for meningitis and not treat it.
- Don't wait for the ambulance to start CPR. It's not beneath you.
- Don't call an ambulance for a patient you have not yet seen or spoken to.
- Don't say "It's above your pay grade". Ever.
- Don't leave us to guess what is wrong with your patient.
- Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room.
- Don't refer to 'medics' and then not refer to medics.
- Don't call because you are running late with your appointments.
- Don't book an ambulance for a patient well enough to get a lift or taxi.
- Don't call an ambulance and say 'within 4 hours'. That isn't an emergency.
- Don't leave your receptionist to give the hand over.
- Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room.
- Don't refuse to come out. If hospital was appropriate we would be there.
- Don't call for a CVA without checking blood sugar! The slurred speech is a hypo!
- Don't call for 'diabetic problems' without checking blood sugar.
- Don't leave a patient on their own when they are peri-arrest.
- Don't call for a panic attack. It isn't an emergency.
- Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room.
- Don't talk down to me.
- Don't give me sarcastic answers to my questions.
- Don't leave someone having a heart attack alone.
- Don't call for someone having a heart attack and not give aspirin or GTN.
- Don't roll your eyes when I ask you a question.
- Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room.
- Don't tell me I HAVE to take a patient somewhere they are refusing to go.
- Don't call if your patient has a cold. It's a cold. They'll get over it.
- Don't call the DIB and low oxygen levels then not give oxygen.
- Don't call us for an asthma attack and not treat it.
- Don't leave your asthma attack unattended.
- Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room.
- Don't lie to me.
- Don't leave us to guess what room you have hidden the patient in.
- Don't tell us a stretcher is required when you have stairs.
- Don't tell us a chair is required when your patient has a cut hand.
- Don't call us to a head injury and not put a dressing on.
- Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room.
- Don't leave a letter that is completely unreadable.
- Don't call an ambulance for a patient who has refused hospital.
- Don't call an ambulance and not tell the patient we are coming.
- Don't call an ambulance and not tell your patient why.
- Don't send a patient home in their car and then call 999 for them.
- Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room.
- Don't call for anaphylaxis and not give adrenaline.
- Don't call for a hypo and not give glucose or glucagon.
- Don't leave a 95 year old with a pulse of 28 alone. CPR is inevitable.
- Don't say it's immediately life threatening when it clearly isn't.
- Don't call an ambulance when one has already been and referred on to you. The patient will still refuse hospital. You need to visit.
- Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room.
- Don't ask your receptionist to call an ambulance and not say why.
- Don't say 'MI' on the phone unless you have ECG proof. It's just chest pain.
- Don't send a patient with chest pain home and then call an ambulance there because you are closing for lunch. Seriously. Bad form.
- Oh, and for god's sake, get a bloody defibrillator! If Tesco can have one, a GP surgery can have one.
GPs have a very difficult job to do, they really do. They have to see and treat everyone for every possible medical condition and they are hugely oversubscribed. I do think though, that this is the case because most refuse to work outside of Monday-Friday 08:30-18:30. This causes the Monday backlog and the Friday rush. Outside of those times we are left referring to a skeleton staff of OOH GPs who don't have the time to see everyone. And I did say most! There are some brilliant GPs who do regular home visits, give great handovers and are everything you want from a GP. Maybe if GPs worked unsociable hours as part of their £100,000 salary some of the pressure would be relieved. In the meantime, being sensible about who requires an ambulance would go some way to easing pressure on the already bulging A & E departments. If the GPs are to be in charge of the NHS they'll have to stop looking after themselves and see the bigger picture. Then again, what do I know, I'm just a stretcher monkey and this is way above my pay-grade!
As always, if there is any I have forgotten, leave it in the comments and i'll add!
Click the Take Note photo at the top to see the other posts in the series!
If possible could the GP let the ambulance service use the tools they use to make a definite diagnosis over the phone?
ReplyDeleteBrilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you!Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant! Thank you! Oh and Thank you.....I greatly appreciate your time and expertise.
ReplyDeleteIf these things didn't actually occur, this would be hilarious. Unfortunately, extremely disturbing!
ReplyDeleteNot all Tesco's have Defib's. they should have, but the company are too tight to pay for them
ReplyDeleteBrilliant list. Every one sadly true and don't' forget, "Don't leave seriously ill people in the waiting room."
ReplyDeleteAlso, advice from a lowly hca to the on call GP I met when visiting a community patient. If the hca with no medical training apart from her first aid at work, Red Cross cadet experience and just common sense, can hear the chest rattle and see the patient slowly becoming cyanosed. Then asking for a transport ambulance with "no rush" is not the way to go. The transport arrived, took one look at the poor chap and radioed through for a unit carrying O2. Luckily for the chap he made it to hospital as it was a 5 minute drive. Unfortunately he passed away 2 days later in ITU. I still wonder if he would have survived longer if the GP had realised the state he was in.
ReplyDeleteAs a long in the tooth paramedic I can concur a lot of what you say is true, although to be fair I think the main problem is GP's just don't have the time to wait with patients for the ambulance, the system is at fault as much as anything else. Like the blog, cheers.
ReplyDelete