Today's adventure in being a UK GP shows why the system is creaking.

Of 30 patients on my list today, 3 were GP problems; rest are waiting for definitive secondary care treatment.

Manager added our actual GP work (hypertension reviews) as extras because we have no time anymore. Let's go through some examples, adapted for patient confidentiality.

Important to recognise that this is all the fault of a stretched system, and not any specific clinic/doctor.

(Having said that, I do wish my hospital colleagues were a little better at NHS Hospital Contract)

Welcome to my day off processing work that secondary care can't be arsed to do for no apparent reason.

Enjoy my thread... "Hi GP, the patient is in my room now but if you could do the grunt work of figuring out how to explain to the patient how to split 5mg tablets in two and work it all out, that'd be great, ta."

Notice that the specialist says "*I* will be..."

When I was a CMT1 I was in a godawful post where I ended up driving to a lake to drown myself after work one late night after finishing.

The Trust's Occupational Health sole suggestion was that I talk to my non existent supervisor "if I was struggling".

https://twitter.com/ChrisHopsonNHS/status/1779188346289348675

Over a period of several months I was worn down to a husk of myself.

I cried every morning at 7am in my car, having arrived 2 hours early to start the impossible workload.

I was the most senior doctor on my team for the first month, with zero support or supervision.

I know many people still think GPs are hiding, lazy or whatever.

Here is my day today, with some details changed to protect anonymity but still reflect the Monday I've worked

#teamgp

🧵1/ On Mondays I do triage. We looked at around 60 online requests and arranged prescriptions and future appointments. I spoke to 20 patients too. Some were simple problems (like a UTI) but some were quite serious (cancer referrals based on tests results).

2/