"The system is at fault"

Thank you for your response to my account of my difficulty in firstly: contacting my local health centre, and secondly: obtaining an appointment with a general practitioner. I have to make it clear that I know that this is not a local problem and so it would not be helpful to anyone to identify which health centre I am registered with. Local staff are not to blame. It is a National problem and one that can only be addressed on a National level, by the Scottish Government.

To precis my thoughts on the subject:

I fully understand that there are staff shortages both in administrative staff and medical staff positions and that this is increasing workloads and stress levels for those staff who remain working. However, that is not a reasonable excuse for the failure to provide a service.

I have commented to reception staff on the difficulty that I have experienced in making initial contact with the health centre and I have been told that the phone lines cannot cope with the number of incoming calls and so the system 'crashes'. Surely that can be avoided by providing more phone lines?

The difficulty in contacting the health centre opens up some new problems.

The staff who answer the telephones at the health centre are clearly stressed. The last time that I managed to contact a staff member I did not even manage to complete my sentence before I was summarily dismissed and the call was cut off. We are told to contact NHS24 if we cannot contact our health professionals but that particular safety net does not work. You cannot provide individualised and personal health care on a telephone. The response of those who provide advice on 111, if they consider it to be a life threatening issue, is to advise people to phone 999. This then results in an ambulance being sent. This ties up two paramedics and one ambulance for a considerable period of time when all that would have been required in many cases would be a physical examination from a doctor. Obviously I also understand that there are many situations that cannot competently be dealt with in this way but that is a judgement that staff who answer the telephones on the NHS24 line cannot make and so an ambulance is summoned many more times than is really necessary.

On the second point, that of obtaining an appointment with a doctor, I have just had a four week wait from visiting the health centre and requesting an appointment, to actually getting one, and even then my consultation was a phone call. When I asked for an actual consultation I was told that any appointment has to be a phone call in the first instance and then, if the doctor considers it necessary, a face to face appointment will be arranged at a later date. So how long are people supposed to wait for a face to face appointment? From this it would seem likely that it would be eight weeks from first contact to getting one's health issue addressed. Long enough for any genuine problem to become worse and long enough for those who had no real reason for requesting an appointment in the first place to lose interest and forget about it. Is this one of the reasons for the current system?

We are told that a pharmacist is able to deal with minor health issues. What is a minor health issue? Health problems tend to get worse if neglected and I am certainly not going to stand in my pharmacy explaining intimate health issues with staff and customers listening in. I am aware that a 'private' room is available for consultations at a pharmacy but the concept of 'privacy' is relative and It does not measure up to my standards at my local chemist's shop.

And so it is not a straightforward issue. I understand that and unless the health system is given a complete overhaul I do not see what can be done to lessen my concerns. I am not blaming local staff who are no doubt doing their best in difficult conditions. Certainly platitudes will do nothing to help. The whole system is at fault.