Dear Paul
I can see that I'm going to have to be the one to break the bad news and
tell you that you're in danger of becoming a Sad Old Bastard like me.
(Sorry, I should have asked your permission before sharing the news with Big
Group).
<RANT>
Of course you're right, but in this customer-driven frenzy that HMG insists
on pushing through it's all about what the patient wants, and nothing to do
with what the patient needs.
One of the major factors that allowed me to leave general practice was the
certain knowledge that the NHS, if it really buckles down to it (systems
working OK, spare beds at the hospital, no-one on leave etc) can just about
hope to meet patients' needs. What the NHS can never ever hope to do is give
patients what they want, but that's what the so-called modernisation
programme is all about.
It is the ever-widening gap between what patients need and what they want
that, in my view, is one of the major reasons why so many members of the
profession are becoming demoralised as they lack the short-term goal
achievement necessary to maintain the momentum.
</RANT>
Robert
> -----Original Message-----
> From: GP-UK [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Caldwell
> New Years Eve- loads free appts, nobody around. New Years day: Coop
> inundated with coughs and colds. Today same in surgery inundated "might
need
> note for next week doc". Am I becoming an old cynic or is the population
> becomming a bunch of work-shy wussies who want treatment and Med3s as and
> when they want it? Y R the worried well so more worried these days? Of
> course the really sick didn't call and waited.
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