GP appointment, modern-style
13 January 2025 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI went to my GP because I was told that I really ought to get a mysterious pain in my left hand checked out which has been troubling me since before Christmas -- I have been putting it off because I know that you have to jump through a vast number of hoops to see a doctor nowadays, and I always try to avoid doing so for anything that might go away of its own accord. I went to the GP surgery in person to try to book an appointment in the hopes of being able to simplify the process.
The receptionist took all the details of my symptoms and told me that if I didn't have a smartphone to install their 'app', I would need to go home and ring the special number for a 'self-referral'. So I went home.
When I got to the telephone I rang the number I had written down on a piece of paper, and was told that it was a private company offering physiotherapy treatment 'on behalf of the NHS'. I said that I had been given this number in order to make an appointment with my GP, and was given a number with which to ring back to the doctor's surgery.
So I entered into their telephone queuing system ("You are now Number... Eight in the queue") and waited fifteen minutes to speak to the receptionist again. She explained that yes, I was supposed to be self-referring for physiotherapy despite the fact that nobody had actually diagnosed me with anything yet, let alone recommended therapy. I should ring up the private company again and request a 'physiotherapy assessment' (it would have been helpful to have known this before being sent home to book a doctor's appointment).
So I joined the telephone queuing system on the other number and waited another five minutes for the call to be answered -- fortunately I got a completely different call handler this time so didn't have to bother explaining why I was ringing back yet again. And I was told that the earliest possible time for an initial assessment was in a month's time, on February 11th. Not an actual doctor's appointment in which a real live person could feel the tendons moving on the back of my hand and judge whether there was anything the matter with them (I tentatively suspect inflammation of some kind), but a telephone assessment for triage to judge whether I qualified to join the queue for an appointment or not.
(A quick look on the Internet suggests that if it *is* tendon inflammation it is normally expected to go away of its own accord within two or three weeks, so presumably that would be a pretty good way of narrowing down the diagnosis... except that it has already been going on for longer than that.)
This sort of thing is precisely why I was putting off going to the doctor in the first place; there is no point seeking medical attention for anything unless it is either an acute emergency or else has been going on for sufficiently long already that you can be reasonably sure that the symptoms won't have cleared by themselves before anyone actually investigates. This isn't a disabling condition; it doesn't hurt unless I accidentally touch the back of my hand against something when my fingers are in precisely the wrong position (generally when I am trying to slide down between the sheets...), it doesn't prevent me from doing any kind of activity involving my left hand, least of all violin-playing, and there didn't seem much point in making a fuss about it.
But I was told that it was stupid not to claim treatment simply on the grounds that it is difficult to get a doctor's appointment for anything non-life-threatening. Well, I feel vindicated; it wasn't worth the effort (and when the telephone assessment eventually comes I shall probably be given a brush-off -- I can't even inflict pain on myself by deliberately prodding and poking at the area at the moment, which makes remote diagnosis pretty much impossible).
I might as well have sat at home with my intermittent stabs of Something Wrong and let the doctors get on with the patients who actually do need urgent help, as opposed to wasting everybody's time, including my own...
The receptionist took all the details of my symptoms and told me that if I didn't have a smartphone to install their 'app', I would need to go home and ring the special number for a 'self-referral'. So I went home.
When I got to the telephone I rang the number I had written down on a piece of paper, and was told that it was a private company offering physiotherapy treatment 'on behalf of the NHS'. I said that I had been given this number in order to make an appointment with my GP, and was given a number with which to ring back to the doctor's surgery.
So I entered into their telephone queuing system ("You are now Number... Eight in the queue") and waited fifteen minutes to speak to the receptionist again. She explained that yes, I was supposed to be self-referring for physiotherapy despite the fact that nobody had actually diagnosed me with anything yet, let alone recommended therapy. I should ring up the private company again and request a 'physiotherapy assessment' (it would have been helpful to have known this before being sent home to book a doctor's appointment).
So I joined the telephone queuing system on the other number and waited another five minutes for the call to be answered -- fortunately I got a completely different call handler this time so didn't have to bother explaining why I was ringing back yet again. And I was told that the earliest possible time for an initial assessment was in a month's time, on February 11th. Not an actual doctor's appointment in which a real live person could feel the tendons moving on the back of my hand and judge whether there was anything the matter with them (I tentatively suspect inflammation of some kind), but a telephone assessment for triage to judge whether I qualified to join the queue for an appointment or not.
(A quick look on the Internet suggests that if it *is* tendon inflammation it is normally expected to go away of its own accord within two or three weeks, so presumably that would be a pretty good way of narrowing down the diagnosis... except that it has already been going on for longer than that.)
This sort of thing is precisely why I was putting off going to the doctor in the first place; there is no point seeking medical attention for anything unless it is either an acute emergency or else has been going on for sufficiently long already that you can be reasonably sure that the symptoms won't have cleared by themselves before anyone actually investigates. This isn't a disabling condition; it doesn't hurt unless I accidentally touch the back of my hand against something when my fingers are in precisely the wrong position (generally when I am trying to slide down between the sheets...), it doesn't prevent me from doing any kind of activity involving my left hand, least of all violin-playing, and there didn't seem much point in making a fuss about it.
But I was told that it was stupid not to claim treatment simply on the grounds that it is difficult to get a doctor's appointment for anything non-life-threatening. Well, I feel vindicated; it wasn't worth the effort (and when the telephone assessment eventually comes I shall probably be given a brush-off -- I can't even inflict pain on myself by deliberately prodding and poking at the area at the moment, which makes remote diagnosis pretty much impossible).
I might as well have sat at home with my intermittent stabs of Something Wrong and let the doctors get on with the patients who actually do need urgent help, as opposed to wasting everybody's time, including my own...