Latest Moan From You and Me 2023

Well that's not what came up on the NHS site when I put my postcode in, the only option was Maidstone hospital, surely if its at a hospital its A&E, cant see the point of having both in the same place.

 

The root of all these problems seems to be the GP practices. A friend of mine once said the NHS is pretty good, if you can get past the wall that is the GP. In my experience, he is right.

Why is A&E so busy? Probably because people can't get to see their GP. Why can't they see their GP? Probably because they are so busy fending off people who repeatedly try to get medical help for the same unresolved issue.

I once knackered both my knees. I could barely walk and was in constant pain. I went to the GP. I got fobbed off. Take off the shelf painkillers and go away. A week later I was back. It's got worse. Begrudgingly they referred me for an x ray. No bone damage, so more painkillers and told to go away. After several more attempts to get it fixed, I finally got referred to a podiatrist. Once there, I had a diagnosis, I got advice on corrective action, I took that advice, and in no time I was fixed. I can't remember how many GP appointments it took to get to the bottom of it.

More recently, I had an issue that caused me some concern. Eventually got an online text based consultation. Got fobbed off. I complained and got another appointment, this time face to face. I was promptly referred to the hospital where, without going into detail, it quickly became evident that if I'd just accepted being fobbed off, I would have been condemned to death. The hospital wasted no time, and after a series of tests and two rounds of surgery, I am now (hopefully) well on the road to recovery. And where does the GP stand on all this? When the surgeon called my GP to arrange for my surgical wound to be checked in a week, remember this is the guy that had just cut me up to save my life, he came off the phone in a stinking mood because the GP fobbed him off. I had to get my wound checked by an out of hours GP at some random venue nothing to do with my actual GP.

 

I'm not sure what UTC stands for., according to google its about GMT.

But Are we getting poor info from the TV, you just basically go to A&E if these places are situated at hospitals

If they want to run a GP service next to a hospital then I suppose that's ok, but might it not be better if the GPs running these concentrated on being GPs at their own practice, then these places might not be needed.

I've never understood why the NHS does everything about three times over, the amount of appointments you end up getting after a referral before getting treatment is strange to say the least.

 

I wouldn't know Pete, have you only got 1 hospital?

Our walk-in clinic is in the only hospital out of our 3 local ones that doesn't have an A&E .

 

Good luck @Loofah , I've never had to request a refund...yet., so will be very interested to hear how you got on.

 

Well it depends how far you want to go, Maidstone is my local one which is pretty close but really my point is that the TV are telling us not go to hospitals but to go to walk in centres, which seem to be mostly at hospitals, confusing info.

We dont appear to have something separate called a "walk in centre", just part of A&E that closes after a certain times and the one at Sittingbourne was closed at 5pm.
I think the Maidstone one is open till 8pm but I dont know about Tunbridge Wells as that didn't even come up on the NHS search.

 

It's all very confusing isn't it .

 

Our GP system is very good here. On Tuesday I phoned the surgery at 8 am. I was first in the queue. After speaking to the receptionist I was told the doctor would phone me. The doctor phoned me back within two minutes and after talking to her I had an appointment for 11 am. I arrived 10 minutes early and was in and out, with a prescription, by my appointment time.

 

Perhaps the lazy GP's get paid extra for running these.

 

Urgent Treatment Centre.

 

Urgent treatment centre, why are they not 24hrs, doesn't sound very urgent, or is UTC just another name for A&E.