When Can I See My GP? - Tonight
General practice is in a state of emergency, with a recruitment crisis, rising staff absences and the legacy of the pandemic all leaving their mark on an already stretched service.
Patients are frustrated, GPs are exhausted, and health and medical unions are angry.
Dr Amir Khan gives us an insight into his work as a GP, and we hear from the receptionists at his practice about abuse they’ve received from patients.
There’s no doubt that general practice is in crisis, reports Martin Marshall, Chair of the Royal College of GPs.
“It's a crisis which is the product of actually a very simple supply and demand problem. We're seeing a growing number of GPs who are becoming stressed, and we're seeing a growing number of GPs who are coping either by working part time or by retiring early. And both of those [facts], of course, are further diminishing the size of the workforce and further exacerbating the crisis that we're in. So it feels like we're in a downward spiral here.”
A government spokesperson said: “We have invested £520 Million pounds to improve access and expand GP capacity during the pandemic and we are making 4,000 training places available for GPs each year, helping to create 50 million more appointments.
On top of this, we have provided an extra £5.4 billion to the NHS to respond to COVID-19 over the next six months and additional health and wellbeing support has been provided to staff.”
Patients being forced to wait to get face to face appointments is one of the most common complaints within general practice.
Someone who knows just how important it is to get the right treatment at the right time is Adam Dilley and his partner Tasha.
After a series of worrying headaches and being wrongly diagnosed with sinusitis, Adam struggled to get an appointment with his GP.
Adam said: “I started feeling unwell, just getting really bad headaches, facial pain, funny feelings in my ears and stuff, we were both worried, we both thought something wasn’t right.”
After calling every day for 2 months Adam finally managed to see his doctor, who told him he needed to have his eyes tested at the opticians.
“I just thought I might come home with a new pair of glasses. Obviously, I knew something was wrong because his face dropped and he was worried and sent me straight to A&E but I didn't think it would be this serious.”
Blood tests and scans revealed Adam had a glioblastoma, an aggressive terminal brain tumour.
Adam said: “It's quite scary. I was on my own in hospital. It didn't sink in for a while.”
His partner Tasha was around seven months pregnant when they received the devastating news.
She said: “It was just the worst thing possible, I thought, how could this be happening to us, you know, with everything that we've got to look forward to? You know, it just seems so unfair.”
A month later, Adam had an operation which removed most of the tumour.
He’s now having radiotherapy and chemotherapy but he’s been told the tumour is likely to regrow within 4 years.
Tasha said: “I think I'd be lying if I said, I haven't thought of the worst case scenario. But I don't tend to go down that road if I can help it.”
Adam added: “It's frustrating because, you know, if this was caught earlier, then we might not be in such a bad, bad scenario.”
Adam feels things may have been different if he had been able to see his GP earlier.
He said: “Most of the time we were calling the GP we couldn’t even get through to get anyone to say there’s no appointments. It's frustrating. It's annoying. And you know, it does make me angry. So yeah, it's frustrating, obviously, and I don’t want it to happen to other people either.”
For now, Adam and Tasha are focused on their baby boy.
He said: “I'm just looking forward to starting life with my son.”
Tasha added: “We've got everything crossed and hoping and praying that the outcome is a good one.”
But with Tasha on maternity leave, and Adam unable to work while he is undergoing treatment, the couple have no income.
A friend of the family has now set up a GoFundMe site for anyone who would like to donate to the young family, called The Fight of My Life - Adam Dilley.
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