Pleased to say am on the mend after an unwelcome visit from Covid_19 (courtesy of New York) . At least now I have immunity I can help out in the front line of care with less fear.
Humbled to be awarded DBE. It represents a life times work. I’m proud to have been able to serve my patients, my profession & my community for >30 years. Thanks to my colleagues who’ve worked alongside me. I’m told i’m 1st Maltese woman to receive this award, chuffed.
Sad that vaccination cohorts don’t take into deprivation. 50 year old in most deprived area = 70 year old in most affluent. Yet former will have to wait months to be protected. Remember most deprived areas have double the mortality rate than least deprived
What would be really good is if politicians from all parties actually said thank you to GPs for delivering so much care despite our problems with work force. 1.3 million appointments per day. 45% asked for on the day. 70% face to face. Come on. Please give us some credit.
Bottom line. Burn out directly correlates with intensity of work. Resilience training, mindfulness, peer support groups and so on, are irrelevant unless work load is sorted.
Amazing. Day 2 of vaccination programme in my primary care network and nearly 700 of most at risk already jabbed. And still many hours to go. Take up is really promising. So proud of my nursing, HCA and GP colleagues.
I’ll do anything - follow any rules, wear any facial clothing, curfew are any time - if what I do means children and students can continue to attend their education.
Received many horrid tweets last few days for saying that gradually increasing my exercise tolerance following post Covid muscular pain & weakness helped. So have blocked or muted many. Amazed that lived experience counts for nothing amongst some.
Just been out walking the dog. Streets are empty. I think we have to stop blaming people for the rapid spread. Vast majority are trying their best within the rules & what they need to do to support themselves & family members. Doesn’t help to blame.
What if the proposed £100b for test and trace was put into funding primary and community care? We’d have the best and most comprehensive public health (including T&T) in the world. It would be money spent well.
2 days to go before becoming president of
@rcgp
- I wish my father, a GP, were alive to share this experience. He taught me a good GP had to be part of their community, be kind, listen and be present for their patients. It’s hard today to follow in his footsteps. But I have tried
On 18th Feb 1992 I started at my GP practice. 30 years later I’m still there - same room, some same staff & patients. So much have changed but fundamental need for a GP providing personalised care, remains. We must, truly must, protect this.
I wish media and others would stop this narrative that GPs work only part time. We’re not. More than half of our work is out side the consulting room (just as with other medics) - R&D, training, running clinical teams, home visiting, working in other clinical area and so on.
As I struggle to complete mandatory Safeguarding training on-line I’m left feeling deflated & demoralised. Who thought that e-learning on such an emotive topic can be done in isolation? Who’s created this monster of anti-eduction tick box? We need reflective peer learning groups
I wish press would not continue to name Covid mutations with a place name. It’s feeding into xenophobia and racial hatred. Use the numbers. The name just refers to where it has been found. Might have originated else where
Bugs me when speakers assume health inequalities can be addressed through health service. They can’t. Inequalities are due to housing, education, jobs,families. None of which can be addressed by health service
Dr hospital doctor. Every time you ask me to act as your SHO in community you’re taking me away from doing my job as a specialist generalist. I’ve 38 years experience. I’m not there to chase up your blood results/organise MRI/follow up BP and so on. Please do it yourself.
Dear colleauges - Just because a woman asks for HRT it doesnt mean she depressed. It just means she needs HRT. I think HRT should be more accessible as should the OCP (without the need for endless visits to GP). Lets stop infantisling women
Thank you to all who voted me in as your next President of
@rcgp
. I promise to work hard for all our m members, non members and patients to make GP (again) the best job in the world.
Dear wonderful patients. We need your support. GPs want to make it easier for you to be able to consult with us. And to deliver continuity for those who need it. But we’re struggling. Not because we’re lazy & female ! But because we can’t create magic and work any harder.
Still hearing of delays in getting recently retired doctors onto list to be vaccinators. Why does it need to be this way? When we needed sailors to go to Dunkirk we didn’t make them first pass endless proficiency tests first ‘just in case’.
Please. Can someone tell me how fair it is to have a shift ending at 3am ? Then not provide transport home & instead expect the doctor to cycle, walk or drive (& if later charge them car parking). Why are we forgetting the human behind the shift.
Saw real patients today. Patients who needed to be seen - not because of COVID - just because it was better for them to be seen in real life. Not over zoom or telephone or video or e- mail. Awesome.
Great day out, I must say: all more so as I admire Princess Anne +++. We talked about ….. well, that’s between me and her (but general practice came up).
Not wanting to mention this. But next month is the last month we can avoid a no deal
#Brexit
- not sure as we facing the biggest recession ever this is a good move. no deal on top of COVID seems toxic combination. Anyone else think the same?
Experience was worse than child birth ! Worst case of the flu I have ever had but spent most of it half awake. NOw very fatigued. Hopefully back to normal by Sunday. But still isolate for another few days after
The single most cost effective, quality inducing, patient satisfaction & clinical well-being promoting factor in the health system is continuity of care. Continuity saves money, improves outcomes for all. Continuity is at grave risk - especially in general practice
AstraZeneca's vaccine showed 79% efficacy against symptomatic disease and can 100% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalization in a new, US-based clinical trial. > good news
As a child I was once punished for something I didn’t do.I felt hurt, angry & humiliated.Its how I feel now. Rather than lauded for our hard work, decreasing waiting time to see us, increasing activity & adopting innovation, GPs are being punished & treated as children.
@Fox_Claire
Reduction in antibodies does not mean reduction in immunity. Don’t need many ! So far - only 1 in every 10 million infected people have been reinfected. Let’s get things into perspective.
Propsed restrictions aim to reduce (possible) 'intolerable pressures on NHS'. I wonder what other intolerable pressures need to be addressed (loneliness, poverty, loss of livlihood, mental illness, domestic violence and so on). Should the question now be ‘how do we want to live?'
Hearing so many conspiracy theories that CMO and CSO are only saying what the Government wants them to say. Absolutely no evidence for this, now or in the past. You don’t get to these positions just by wanting to please Governments.
Today I saw a document written by a senior medic which referred to ‘non specialists eg GPs and junior doctors’. Felt deeply insulted. I am a specialist in family medicine.
Just submitted my 17th appraisal. Someone asked me if it’s been a worth while process. My honest answer is probably no - much better would be to have access to regular peer group support & learning encompassed within this. This is what
@DoctorsDistress
are advocating.
There is no ‘backstory’ to ending of 2/care
@NHSPracHealth
other than (we’re told) - no budget. To remind, it was established following suicide of a psychiatry who also killed her baby and highlighted the barriers doctors have in accessing mental health care.
Honoured to be part of the
@rcgp
team, again. From an immigrant background (where my father was so terrified of RCGP that he never ever shortlisted someone with MRCGP as a partner) to now it’s President. Going forward, I pledge to support my profession in every way I can.
Many congratulations to our former Chair
@ClareGerada
who will be the College's next President. We look forward to working with her when she succeeds
@AmandaCHoweRCGP
from 20 November.
Slightly lost purpose of lock down. Is it to ensure we have enough capacity in NHS (which we have now with Nightingales) or to reduce transmission (which surely is only interim as the virus is endemic).
Narrative is often ‘NHS isn’t working’. Just think how many of us have received text to book our Covid jab, made an appointment on line- convenient in place & time for us, received text reminder & then vaccinated. All for no on-cost, no hassle. That’s the NHS working
I feel very emotional as does
@NHSPracHealth
team for all the wonderful support we have received since Friday. I promise - it is helping. Thank you so much, especially those who have publicly declared they were our patients.
I will make it easier to see GP, promises Coffey> not sure where extra will come from. There is no magic GP tree ! Until & unless we reduce workload we’re flat out delivering more care, to more people & to greater difficulty. We CANT do anymore. Sorry.
Seeing many medics who are exhausted and feel unable to face the future. If you feel like this please don’t suffer in silence or show ‘stiff upper lip’.
@NHSPracHealth
is here for you. Confidential. Easily accessible and we understand what you’re going through
Saw patient who’d had one of those health screenings advertised. She came to discuss the results. Didn’t know where to start - it’s impossible when you start at the testing end rather than the symptom end - unless its a validated screening programme. My advise. Save your £
More than 60% of consultations in GP are face to face - meaning as 40% done via other means we can now spend longer with our patients who need us. just because fewer are face to face doesn’t mean we are spending less time in the consulting room. In fact. We’re spending longer.
Sad my profession is suffering so much.GPs try hard to accommodate patients needs.But it’s important we protect GPs.
@NikkiKF
now is time to act.GPs need funding & staff to support massive increase in demand. This isn’t about digital - it’s about work which we can’t deal with.
The blaming of GPs has to stop. The over prescribing of meds is NOT our fault. We are enforced to Px by our regulators, inspectors, NICE, specialist colleagues, guidelines, protocols and more rather than what we would prefer which is longer appointments with our patients.
Far from GPs doors not being open, they are so wide open you could drive a horse & cart through them. More than a million consultations per day and rising exponentially since Jan (not counting our work delivering vaccine programme).
Enough is enough. My values come first. I’m not spending my time flicking through endless PowerPoint. Mandatory training needs to make sense. It makes no sense.
Sadly seeing escalating numbers for doctors (especially GPs) coming for help
@NHSPracHealth
With serious mental illness. One wonders whether the current vitriol & unfair attack against GPs is responsible for this?
At 11am on 28 April all of NHS England’s teams will hold a minutes silence. I will do so as well to remember my
#NHS
workers and for my social care colleagues, my patients and my friends who have died.
We need to create a world wide movement to support the (eroding) rights of women across the world. This has to be the urgent agenda for us all, now. When mothers die everyone suffers.
Today’s GP data shows that the total number of appointments delivered by general practice in August (25.5 million) remains higher than pre-pandemic levels (23.3 million in August 2019).
GPs are trying their best to meet demand. We really are. Please be patient with us, understand the difficulties we are under & that we are working flat out but it’s almost impossible to keep up with volume of work. This is our pandemic. We need help & support & resources.
As hospital doctors have sub-specialised into narrower areas, GP has expanded to fill the gaps in care. Now working across many areas -in & out of consulting room (core GP,UCC, prisons,homeless,mental health, child health,addiction & more).No wonder it’s hard to meet demand.
General practice delivered 26.5m appointments this August - 13.3% above the level seen in the same month in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic, analysis of official data show.
33rd wedding anniversary today. Thanks
@WesselyS
for never dull moment. Our boys described our relationship as being built on competition. I think more likely love - but competition a close 2nd.
Have sent my book on doctors and mental illness to publishers. I hope they can help with a title. 120,000 words. 27 chapters. Personal as well as professional view of why doctors are in distress.
The talk of ‘cancelling’ Xmas misses the point. Xmas will still happen. Its just how we celebrate it will change. Smaller, more intimate & quieter. Father Christmas will still come; cards & gifts still exchanged; turkey & mince pies will still be eaten; good cheer given. Have fun
I wonder whether we shouldn’t cut our health leaders some slack at the moment. We’re working hard - they must be working unbelievable so-& added pressure that they carry the can. Also they are losing friends, colleagues, becoming unwell, fearful of their loved ones health.
I think this is a wise suggestion.
#woundedhealer22
😔resilience training just locates the problem in the individual rather than the system which is breaking us.
Learnt today that 90% of vaccines in england have been huge my primary care - led by GPs. Gosh. Didn’t see that headline in newsagent when i went to buy dog food this evening. Come on. Give us credit where credits due
I have been a GP for >26 yrs in the same community in which I live. I can’t help think of the patients long since passed away when I walk around. It’s not just patients who might become fond of and value knowing their GP. Opposite is true as well.
I first entered this consulting room on 17th Feb 1992 at
@HurleyGroup
as a fresh faced, newly qualified (pregnant) GP. Still here nearly 30 yrs later. Lots has changed. My love of being a GP hasn’t.
What I don’t understand is if a patient needs regular blood tests for their hospital Rx why hospital asks GPs to do them. This is massively excess work for us. Surely hospitals has access to paper, computers, blood tests, phlebotomy? This has to stop. We are not PA’s.
Dementia patients who see same GP have better quality of life, study finds> so important that we return to a focus on continuity which is the bedrock of general practice. Continuity is King.