Having had a look at a few other country methods of doing it now.
Thankfully getting other folk sorted I quite like the South African method.
Which is you first go to see a Nurse who deals with sick lines colds and all that stuff. They can then either sort you out or send you through another door to see a doc.
You can if you wish you can bypass the nurse by paying 40 quid.
Not really angry at either, its just yet another service in the UK that the majority of working people get a raw deal on. And that time I was in particular distress. Anyway the consultant seemed to be more pissed off about the whole thing than I was. I was just glad it was being sorted. The embarassment factor of walking into the clap clinic for the first time really didn't enter into the equation. And I must say if I get any problems in that region again I think I will go striaght there and miss out the GP service.
Any tradionally out of hours stuff is just used up by the same people that fill it up during the traditional hours. Must admit we did have it good for 6 months with a locum in covering maternity leave. The guy was a long haired jean wearing t-shirt wearing doc. Pulled his own blood and was a good laugh. He was one of those docs that goes off to the third world and comes back to locum work to get a bit of cash in his bank account. The old dears didn't like the look of him, the mums didn't like him cause he told them what he thought of there lifestyle choices. Result all the working folk got seen.
O and to add its exactly the same with blood donation I am O neg apparently you can't get enough of the stuff. I was a donor for years while a student. Soon as I started work. No chance the clinic openings hours just didn't allow for it.
And for your quest to see how long I need with the GP err I would say most of the time zero. A nurse could sort it out, in fact a nurse can sort it out very quickly when you walk into a surgery with chicken pox. You get thrown out the door and someone gives you a doctors line on the end of a stick for 14 days off. Then the couple of times I do need to see the GP 10 mins is about right.
Last edited by mad_jock; 18th Jun 2010 at 08:55.