One of the changes due under the new healthcare bill and which is being criticised by GPs to the point of organising this strike, is concerning the proposed compulsory third-party payments - which would see doctors bill the state and private insurance companies for patients' visits rather than the patients paying up front themselves, as happens now. GPs are saying that this is an expensive process that will take up their time. They are also opposing the suggestion that certain vaccinations (most probably the flu jab) be carried out by pharmacists and they are seeing a breaking up of their profession.
I see the first proposal as an increase in the demand of a GPs services, i.e. not everybody can find the money upfront at the precise moment they need a GP. If no-one needs to worry about this anymore then I believe the government have made a good decision on this and the GPs will be seeing folk with seemingly more minor problems which in the past they would have ignored (even to the detriment of their health) until the next payday, benefit payment etc.
So many of our GPs have taken on additional responsibilities i.e. local mayors etc., etc and I think now is the time to ensure that they pay fulltime attention to the profession they chose to pursue.
Are they right to strike….?
Right Mike. As I have said in several other posts, I have carefully trained my doctor. He now reads me each thing he gets and, if I do not have a printout, prints me one. We then discuss thoroughly. When he stopped my statins the cardio looked a bit surprised but told me he did it exactly at the right time to almost the optimal week. Working together enables such things.
Reply on this answer to the other one -
What do you mean by Get Involved, Mike?
The thing I notice most about the French system is that the patient is expected to get involved. Great if you are 100% with it. But tough on foreigners and the not so bright. But as my wife is constantly reminding me - France isn't a Nanny State.
I can't obviously comment on the French system becoming more like the NHS - but I'd like to watch what happened in a French surgery if the patients got shut up and turfed out after 10 minutes. Ouch!
Agree Carol, the health service in France is changing due to cutbacks etc and the general service seems to be worse than say, 10 years ago. It seems to depend on where you are.
A friend has just received her RdV for the Pain Control Clinic in Cahors and the date is for the end of march !!!
I'm happy to say the services in the Limousin region appear to be relatively unchanged tho' everything is relatie of course.
I'm still glad I receive treatment in France and not the UK...
I don't think it would be so bad if someone at least considered the matter vaguely important.
The problem I think with the UK is that patient's aren't the owners of the documents in question - they aren't seen to belong to a patient. So therefore if they go AWOL, so what?
It's a bizarre attitude they have toward patients today.
I've just spent over 3 years chasing a blood test and then got the opinion of the 'data' controller as to why it wasn't put in my records. If I had got the thing in the first place it would have answered an awful lot of questions that arose with my health and stopped 3 years of deterioration.
Am I likely to hear the word 'sorry' - no, I am not.
Sadly each time Mum comes home from hospital she brings with her a copy of the discharge notice with full instructions for medication, which has been sent to the GP. Whenever I ask (four times so far) the receptionist where it is, she denies ever having received it. Same happened when husband needed an injection instructed by the hospital - diabetic nurse denied having seen the letter, even after he gave her a copy of his copy, she couldn't find it when the next injection was needed so he had to copy it to her again. If we paid for these documents maybe someone would take more care of them?
This was not a blood test, but a scan done at the cancer hospital in Lyon.
Correct, the Lab will ask you what you want done with your copy. ie sent to your house or leave at the lab to be picked etc
My observant French GP picked up on something I hadn't consulted him about. No extra charge, he seemed to assume that was all part of his job.
Even the doctors in the UK are kicking off about the payment for dementia diagnosis - they say it will lead to many misdiagnoses. Got to hand it to them on that score, but I don't suppose all of them will see it in the same way...
My test result had been sent to my GP - he just hadn't made a note of it. So, unless you go direct to the lab to get it, it's not available anywhere. I'd laugh if it wasn't so scary.
I'm having difficulty at the moment trying to keep an eye on Mum's medical care in the UK. Roll on the day when "she" can look up the records online and see why the GP hasn't sent the district nurses round to give her all those injections which were sent home with her from the hospital. Scary lack of communication between hospitals and GPs which, I suspect, wouldn't happen if we were paying per visit. Mind you, I'm reluctant to present myself at the UK GP's surgery in case he decides to claim extra money for diagnosing Alzheimers for all and sundry :-))
Rather a good choice of dates. We will all have to go easy on the booze and stuffing!
Just save the party for the New Year.........
Dear Jane,
When it comes to blood test results please see my response to Diana's post above (and that was with computers and everything being neat and clean!)
I wish they did - I got a blood test result through from the UK in July this year - it was taken in May 2011 and no one had bothered putting it in my records, so no one knew about it. Everyone presumed that since it hadn't appeared then it must be fine (the main proponent of this theory being the data controller at the hospital I'd contacted - cos you really need and want their medical opinon!)
Wrong.
Before we changed to our present doctor in Cluny, who charges 26 euros per visit, we had a doctor whose desk was piled up with papers and magazines still in their covers and his card payment machine perched on top.
He did not have a computer and the final straw for us was when he said that he had not had the time to open his mailbox, which contained a result which said that I needed to be seen again straight away as they had found nodules in my lungs.
It is a shame that doctors are allowed to practice on their own, because I believe that they need other professionals around to keep them on their toes.
In Cluny we now have a health centre which has been created out of two old town houses, but which is totally up to date and our doctor speaks excellent English, as he has worked for many years in the USA, so we are happy to pay a little extra.
We have a single GP in our village. She spent nearly an hour with my husband the other day just updating her records, examining him and prescribing drugs and blood tests, all because we wanted to update her about diagnosis and treatment which happened during a summer visit to the UK. It does seem a bit odd that if the local nurse gives you an injection at home you just pass her the carte vitale and mutuelle paper and no cash changes hand, but at the GP you have to pay cash as well as show the cv and mutuelle, however the system works fine here. Phil went to the lab in the nearest town for a blood test, and we looked up the results online that very evening - I wish they did that in the UK!
Years back, Tony Blair announced to the nation a new approach to the NHS was needed and the way forward was to base a new model on some of the best bits of the french system. Nothing happened of course except we saw an increase in UK patients being sent to France to receive treatment !!!
They have a flexible system here that they do not have in the UK - and to lose that would, I think, be devastating in the long term.
I actually have consultation records in the UK that read for one consultation "She (being me) took up nearly 20 minutes of my time!!!!!"
It would have been nice to see something recorded about why I went - but that was not to be.
For all the 'talk' in the UK about care being patient centred, I think the UK could learn a lot about it on the ground, from the system in France.