Using a Private GP Service

daska

Bargin_bunny wrote: »

lol this comment made me laugh. G.P notes are electronic. They only wont have them when you are newley registered. They contain summerys or bullet points of important on going/ chronic problems. Generally speaking if a G.P has a computer screen on in front of him/her there looking at your medical notes.

cant see how a private g.p. can compete with this comprehensive info

I'm sorry it made you laugh, it was based on my personal experience of my 30 year history of incontinence NOT being on my current GP's computerised system.

FleurDuLys

Cripes, did you seriously not see your GP about your incontinence at all in thirty years Daska?

I'd go and see them if I were you!! They might be able to help.

daska

FleurDuLys wrote: »

Cripes, did you seriously not see your GP about your incontinence at all in thirty years Daska?

I'd go and see them if I were you!! They might be able to help.

Of course I did - how else would there be a 30 year history? But there was no mention of it on the computer system at my current surgery. Which is what lead to ATOS claiming there was "no evidence".

FleurDuLys

But as I understand it, your notes will have followed you around, so your GP is supposed to have notes going back years, all collated under your NHS Number. When you move house, your new GP surgery has your old notes sent to them from your old surgery. They've been computerised for many years now too so the GPs don't even have to go trawling through the old paper handwritten notes that they kept in those brown cardboard packets. If you have had a serious longstanding condition for 30 years then it's very odd if this isnt mentioned anywhere in your file! I think you should probably bring that up with your GP surgery to find out what's gone wrong.

Unless, at the time you made the application, you had recently moved house and were just waiting for your notes to catch up with you? This can take a few weeks, and would leave a new GP without any info about you for a short while.

KxMx

TOBRUK wrote: »

As to your friends' GP, if she is not satisfied that the GP understands or is treating her adequately, she can ask for a referral to a specialist. I saw an M.E. specialist years ago! I am also lucky that my own GP knows a great deal about the illness and requests to see me every 4-6 weeks!

The ME specialist services are few and far between and very over subscribed. As my town hospital only offers ME services to children, the "local" service asks me to travel across 3 counties to be assessed and then you are sent to the local one (Occupational Therapy) or continue travelling 3 counties (GP with Special Interest), they decide where you go.
I asked the next nearest one and they said I couldn't as I didn't live in the area (and they are not part of the Choose and Book scheme) and London who said they would be concerned for me to do the travel and referred me back to my "local" service. London was one train whereas the "local" would have been two!
When I looked into this I had neither the money for transport/ accomodation or energy.
My only other option seemed the Pain Management clinic but again there was massive demand and I already knew what works for my pains.

daska

FleurDuLys wrote: »

But as I understand it, your notes will have followed you around, so your GP is supposed to have notes going back years, all collated under your NHS Number. When you move house, your new GP surgery has your old notes sent to them from your old surgery. They've been computerised for many years now too so the GPs don't even have to go trawling through the old paper handwritten notes that they kept in those brown cardboard packets. If you have had a serious longstanding condition for 30 years then it's very odd if this isnt mentioned anywhere in your file! I think you should probably bring that up with your GP surgery to find out what's gone wrong.

Unless, at the time you made the application, you had recently moved house and were just waiting for your notes to catch up with you? This can take a few weeks, and would leave a new GP without any info about you for a short while.

LOL, the story of my notes... lets just say it's long and confused, especially the bits where my consultant offered me a completely irrelevant operation because I was confused with another patient with a similar name.

Richie-from-the-Boro

daska wrote: »

Of course I did - how else would there be a 30 year history? But there was no mention of it on the computer system at my current surgery. Which is what lead to ATOS claiming there was "no evidence".

daska and everyone else reading this thread.

There are literally, aircraft hanger sized, air conditioned storage facilities warehousing old paper based MEDrecs from both GP's & Hospitals all over the country.

If anyone feels that any personal medical information is not held on the current computer based GP's system write a report yourself in the best way you can keeping to chronological order and take it to your GP explaining that this specific information is critical to your claim and asking that in formation on these areas (1) be imported into the surgery's IT system and (2) that your dated and signed personal report be kept in your current / live medical file for future referencing.

Needless to say if you write a rambling megga tome / or / invent something that the GP disagrees with you will limit your chances of sucess.

FleurDuLys

It sounds as though something has gone badly wrong. Everyone is meant to have medical notes that are taken and retained every time they see a GP. Take a look at this site - it states that those notes have to be held until (a minumum of) 10 years after a patient's death!

http://www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/1889.aspx?CategoryID=68&SubCategoryID=160

It is really, really seriously wrong if you have had a condition for 30 years and have been seeing your GP or a consultant for regular appointments but absolutely none of this information is recorded anywhere. It almost sounds unbelievable. What does your GP do when you see him, sit there twiddling their thumbs? Why haven't your consultant's letters to your GP been copied into your file? As you say, it has caused great problems for you because those notes weren't there to provide evidence of your condition when you needed it. If I were you I'd be chasing this up to find out what the hell has happened!

Richie-from-the-Boro

jetta_wales wrote: »

On what grounds are there to decide that a private GP must be corrupt and willing to be fraudulent and risk being struck off for what is a relatively small amount of money to them?

None.

The whole point of this thread is that the Witch doctors in the pay of ATOS [ used to be Schlumberger ], armed with their paid licence from the UK government are trained to completely ignore your own GP & Specialists opinion of your condition and write an alternative perfunctory medical view based not on observation but on a check list designed to provide the BA's ' decision maker ' with an E.M.P report that is sufficiently worded that a reduction or complete withdrawal of a benefit in general or DLA in particular can be immediately instituted.

So the ATOS people see all applicants as scroungers who are to be bumped off benefit ASAP. Their method for achieving this outcome is to deliberately use a medical opinion from a medical practitioner unknown to the disabled person and to make sure the disabled persons history / GP's / truth's notes are not taken into account. What a dirty underhanded way of getting what they want. The O/P of course is doing precisely the same thing, I can't get what I want because my GP knows my history, I'll go to someone who does not know my history.

Disabled people should fight for every benefit that will make their lives more bearable and should do so with dignity. In particular they should fight for their evidence based personal GP's opinions [ not ATOS ] to be used as the measure of their ability / disability. Disabled people should not circumvent the system when it suits them, it makes a mockery of truth. It's a mirror image of the same sharp practice that is currently in use to take 30% of the genuinely disabled out of the higher end benefits area.

jetta_wales, both opinions are valid and not corrupt / or / illegal, one is based on 20 years of personal observations, and the paid one on 20 minutes of non evidence [ they write down things that they have not seen or verified ] based hearsay.

daska

Perhaps I could refer you to my first post on page one which I think explains all this...

daska wrote: »

ATOS stated that there was 'no evidence' of incontinence on my last medical - actually there is evidence going back 30 years. But it wasn't on my current GP's computer system and ATOS can't be bothered to check paper notes. All I did was mention it to my GP and hey presto, there it was on the computer but still with no referral to the paper notes! So how can going private be getting a made up report any more than going via the NHS or indeed any more 'made up' than an ATOS report?