Ramsey Group Practice

[Last Ten 171]

Just reading the article on IOM Today about the abuse some poor Doctors receptionists at Ramsey Group Practice are being subjected to! - IOM Today

Simple question, why are Ramsey Group Practice (and I believe Southern Group Practice) still only allowing telephone contacts with a Doctor before being seen, as opposed to other Doctors surgeries on the Island allowing face to face normal appointments, it seems a massive big discrepancy and wondered if our Department of Health and Social Care actually know there is a discrepancy where Ramsey and the South are still operating under Covid conditions?!

Just curious as to why there are big differences?

[piebaps 3,149]

https://www.gov.im/media/1370223/guidance-for-gp-practices-181120.pdf

Rules are standard

[Last Ten 171]

5 minutes ago, piebaps said:

https://www.gov.im/media/1370223/guidance-for-gp-practices-181120.pdf

Rules are standard

But they are not standard, they are differing amongst IOM Group practices! 

[Kopek 2,093]

Rang Hailwood for a phone consultation, thought this was the way they preferred, after the usual taciturn Receptionist interaction, got the appointment, about a week I think, 20 mins late but got my phone consultation, got some anti-inflamatories, it was only sciatica for chrissakes, only to be told it would require an actual appointment to be sure??? Legal covering???

Receptionists? Now  there's a story!!!

[Roxanne 1,425]

Laxey is telephone appointments only - unless the doctor judges that a further face to face appointment is necessary. 

[Derek Flint 4,052]

Easiest way to manage it is to email them with a proper précis of what is up with you. This is fine as long as you are comfortable with the entire staff knowing your medical issues. Never bothered me, but I can imagine it would be an issue for others.

i used to email my GP directly, but they now insist you email the generic inbox.

Edited November 24, 2020 by Derek Flint

[Banker 1,029]

Well I rang hail wood for appointments and had no grilling about why,told me available appointments and with whom & had one 3 days later.

If you want a particular doctor you may wait longer for appointments 

[Dave Hedgehog 841]

I dare say they have found it is an effective way of cutting back on some of the time wasters who are no doubt the ones now abusing the staff.

[BallaDoc 535]

The guidance says "All patients should be triaged by phone prior to being given an appointment" but it doesn't specify who should be doing the triaging.  In my opinion it's a suboptimal use of resources for the doctors to triage every patient themselves; the triaging is best done by the reception staff.  There will always be a few patients who are wrongly triaged, for example, the patients who think we are magicians and can diagnose the most complex problems over the phone without seeing them, and the ones who book a F2F appointment to get a test result which could easily have been given over the phone, but the triaging seems to work well in the vast majority of cases.    

I now never give out my email address to patients, because I've had too many of them abuse it and start emailing me directly for routine admin things like repeat prescriptions.

Edited November 24, 2020 by BallaDoc

[All Right 50]

10 hours ago, piebaps said:

https://www.gov.im/media/1370223/guidance-for-gp-practices-181120.pdf

Rules are standard

They can’t be. I had a doctors appointment on Friday in Douglas. None of that applied. Called the receptionist, spoke for 2 minutes then for booked in as normal. 

[Roger Mexico 9,324]

1 minute ago, BallaDoc said:

The guidance says "All patients should be triaged by phone prior to being given an appointment" but it doesn't specify who should be doing the triaging.  In my opinion it's a waste of resources for the doctors to triage every patient themselves; the triaging is best done by the reception staff. 

That's what I don't understand about the Ramsey approach.  They're actually making more work for themselves by insisting on a three-stage process when they only need to triage plus appropriate appointment.  And given that they seem to have very long waiting times to start with, it's only going to make things worse.

Of course you could argue that having the initial triage done by medically unqualified staff is wrong, but that's the bit that hasn't changed.

[Banker 1,029]

22 minutes ago, All Right said:

They can’t be. I had a doctors appointment on Friday in Douglas. None of that applied. Called the receptionist, spoke for 2 minutes then for booked in as normal. 

Same as me no problem with appointments 

[Last Ten 171]

2 hours ago, Roxanne said:

Laxey is telephone appointments only - unless the doctor judges that a further face to face appointment is necessary. 

Which just goes to show they are all differing in there appointment system.

[Andy Onchan 4,078]

All of this reminds me of a story told to me many years ago..... elderly gentleman was experiencing problems in urinating (I recognise that symptom) so he called his local surgery for an appointment with the doctor. The nosy-poke of a receptionist asked him why he needed the appointment, he told her he'd rather not say. She said, "well you'll have to tell me otherwise the doctor won't see you". So he rather reluctantly said "it's my ear". She then said, "what's wrong with your ear?". "It's blocked", he replied. So having got the appointment he duly rolled up at the doctor who asked, "Right Mr Smith, what appears to be wrong with your ear?". To which the gentleman replied, "I can't piss out of it"!

[piebaps 3,149]

Appointments are done on the basis of what is wrong with you. That's the point of triage. If you're not getting one, you don't need one. Its not difficult.