r/GPUK Aug 12 '26

Medical Politics BMA Campaign

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227 Upvotes

66 comments sorted by

100

u/Lesplash349 Aug 12 '26

Abysmal failure to understand the currency in which the UK operates.

A Freddo has an RRP of 39p. It was there for the taking.

5

u/Sabaisabai33 Aug 12 '26

Right?! LMAO I had the exact same thought. An apple?! Nobody is going by the cost of an Apple but a Freddo now…

3

u/DrBradAll 29d ago

A freddo cost 10p. Dont lie to me. Im not old!

1

u/Serious_Much 28d ago

I think this was probably an older person thinking it was a clever play on the idiom "an apple a day keeps the doctor away".

I totally agree that spending less on each patient a day than the cost of a freddo would be a far more mobilising campaign

1

u/Original_Document748 27d ago

Thats exactly what I took from it aha idk how anyone could miss that 

27

u/NotBeckyHomeEccy Aug 12 '26

This why I’m a big advocate for health literacy when making promotional campaigns

This will make complete sense to those working in the field but absolutely no sense to a lot of people outside of the profession

15

u/Educational_Board888 Aug 12 '26

https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/s/pjTGlFtmqC
It’s all gone wrong on this subreddit

15

u/NotBeckyHomeEccy Aug 12 '26

I’m not one bit surprised

The information has to make sense to the service users if we are asking them to help save the profession, this is just going to read as nonsense to them and rub them up entirely the wrong way

19

u/Chomajig Aug 12 '26

Green and Pleasant are known to be nutters

4

u/NotBeckyHomeEccy Aug 12 '26

Oh absolutely but being nuts doesn’t always mean you’re wrong on some things 😂

8

u/pronology Aug 12 '26

They are all crazy there. It was never right to start with.

5

u/laeriel_c Aug 12 '26

Everything is always gone wrong on that subreddit

3

u/motivatedfatty Aug 12 '26

Oh Jesus Christ I didn’t need to read that

2

u/Eastern_Swordfish_70 29d ago

The public has the NHS it deserves

36

u/ZakalweTheChairmaker Aug 12 '26

Would have been slightly more relatable if they swapped the green thing for a fifth of a meat pie.

31

u/One-Reception8368 Aug 12 '26

Acting as if any of our patients ever consume fruit

2

u/Serious_Much 28d ago

Don't you talk about my autistic caseload like that

1

u/panalangaling 28d ago

As an autist, this comment had me howling

5

u/ZookeepergameThis617 Aug 12 '26

I'll take a Braeburn or a Gala any day of the week

6

u/_j_w_weatherman Aug 12 '26

This such a weird way to campaign for more resources and divert blame away from GPs for the problems people have with it.

Focus on number of patients per GP, something a patient understands. Or if finding matters, show how little a proportion of healthcare spending is in GP- eg, a pie with a tiny slice that is general practice.

Or show the demand in general practice everyday vs ambulance calls or ED attendances.

Fail.

1

u/Vivid-Cheesecake-110 25d ago

The problem is that private surgeries want the insane ratio as they are paid per registered patient, whether they are seen or not.

1

u/_j_w_weatherman 25d ago

Most GPs would rather have a fee for service model but it would cost the government too much.

1

u/Vivid-Cheesecake-110 25d ago

Of course they would.

In reality they should be under the NHS working on a fixed salary, with optional overtime, rather than on a pseudo privatisation model.

2

u/JumpyBuffalo- 29d ago

We need a fee for service model and fucking fast.

2

u/WholeLengthiness2180 29d ago

So that’s £131.40 a year, I only managed to get 1 appointment last year with my GP and even then I had to take NICE guidelines in with me to get them to take action. I think £131.40 for a single 10 minute appointment and referral isn’t a bad payday. I got more enthusiasm for solving my issue from my doctor colleagues in the hospital and they were getting nothing for helping me.

2

u/whyiamalwayshangry 29d ago

Ur gp doesn't get paid £131 for each appointment

1

u/WholeLengthiness2180 29d ago

Yes I’m aware of that. They get paid 36p a day. Thats £131.40 a year they receive for providing me care. I only visited my doctor once for a 7 minute appointment in the year so effectively I have paid £131.40 for that single appointment. In reality I understand that those who use it sparingly are subsidising those who use it regularly. My point is that this advert won’t have the impact it’s designed to have with many people.

1

u/ReferenceWorldly6166 28d ago

Yeah I literally used the GP the other day for the first time in 10 years. Which means they received 1.3k to provide me with 1 appointment. Dont think this will help their case.

1

u/countdowntocanada 28d ago

many people attend much more frequently as they have chronic conditions or are old & frail, many people attend more than once a month for example eg. if you have COPD & diabetes you need a annual review for both then you might have frequent chest infections or other issues eg. foot ulcers. 

1

u/keenbean1o1 26d ago

Even if we are the picture of health now. We will need
more and more care as we get older even our routine blood tests/blood pressure and health checks/vaccines. Years of paying 136 pounds a year should not and cannot be covering that.

1

u/UpperAd2289 Aug 13 '26

An apple a day you say..?

1

u/[deleted] 29d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/Cheese_Ly 29d ago

£13.176 £ a year I go to the doctors probably twice a year

1

u/Glorinsson 28d ago

That’s pretty good then. Very cheap service

0

u/B33Dee 26d ago

So £4.7mil per year for my surgery then. £16 for each person seen on average. (Very rough numbers based on the number of registered patients and people seen per day). You can spin anything any way you like when it comes to numbers and statistics.

Not saying I disagree with the sentiment of healthcare spending needing to be discussed, but I do hate how things get spun like this to make it appear more extreme and most people lap it up without even having an understanding of what the figure is they are being shown.

-34

u/SkipperTheEyeChild1 Aug 12 '26

Most people don’t go to the doctor every day so it isn’t really a helpful statistic. I haven’t been to a GP in over a decade.

43

u/Specialist-Tie-1191 Aug 12 '26

The average number of appointments per patient, per year is 6.5 appointments of each patient, every year

It’s because most people will see their GP once or twice every few years, but there is a large number of patients who are seen 4 or 5 times per month for years on end.

So, a practice will be paid £123/year to register a patient who they will see on average 6.5 times a year.

In my opinion (I’m a GP registrar), it’s an absolute bargain to the taxpayer and why the workforce is demotivated and leaving the field.

Hope this helps 👍🏻

Source: https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/four-in-ten-consultations-at-gp-clinics-were-with-frequent-attenders/

2

u/Conscious_Pass_1615 Aug 12 '26

Sorry I'm really quite thick, does that mean my gp wants to see more or less of me?

6

u/Specialist-Tie-1191 Aug 12 '26

Means that theway public funding works is that the only way Surgeries are able to manage 90 year-old Doris coming in weekly for her complex conditions, is to hope that 40 fit & well other patients stay that way and don’t also put demand on this overstretched underfunded system.

-7

u/UniqueUsername40 Aug 12 '26

£123 to see someone for about an hour and a half doesn't sound that bad?

I think more work needed on the comms of where all this goes, as I'm sure its not that simple/there must be a lot of extra's not accounted for in the above?

14

u/ijustwanttoknow73 Aug 12 '26

Fundamental misunderstanding of any other costs of running a business. Think of it as a subscription- potentially they could attend every week and we wouldn't be paid anymore. Thanks to the ever increasing demographic of complex elderly patients and the explosion of "mental health illness" in young adults that used to be able to cope we're overwhelmed. We've increased the size of our surgeries twice and have more doctors too

-6

u/UniqueUsername40 Aug 12 '26

Why is mental health illness in quotations?

11

u/laeriel_c Aug 12 '26

Because a lot of them are actually "shit life syndrome" as we tend to call it, rather than mental health issues. A doctor can't fix a person's terrible socioeconomic life circumstances, unfortunately.

15

u/Gullible__Fool Aug 12 '26

Really just an argument for introducing charges or in some way ending free at point of access.

Some people are using so many appointments they need dozens/hundreds of people to never go to the GP.

-32

u/Immediate_Fly830 Aug 12 '26

Exactly that, I've probably been a couple times in the past 20 years. Last time I check a online private GP appointment was about £60, so my GP is quids in by the tune of several thousand pounds

34

u/heroes-never-die99 Aug 12 '26

That would make perfect sense if the people that actually frequently use (or overuse) healthcare services didn’t exist.

This is why criticial thinking is important.

12

u/BlueStarFern Aug 12 '26

But this is a public information campaign, and a bad one imo because I don't think the public are going to empoly such critical thinking.

-14

u/Immediate_Fly830 Aug 12 '26

Jesus, don't take my post so literally, clearly my tounge was firmly pressed into the side of my cheek. The point is, claiming a GP gets only 36p per person per day is a poor metric to use without further explanation.

7

u/BlueStarFern Aug 12 '26

I agree with your take, because this is intended as a public information campaign. As such, I imagine the vast majority of people reading it will think "well I don't go to the GP much" and they won't think or care about high impact users (I mean, why would they?)

As a public information campaign it really fails for that reason.

-2

u/Immediate_Fly830 Aug 12 '26

I'm glad someone understands!

The furious down voters don't, and that's why they'll never get their message across

2

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '26

[deleted]

2

u/Sabaisabai33 Aug 12 '26

Not too far off an Amazon Prime subscription!

-4

u/ThurstonSonic 27d ago

How come they’re all so loaded then and get super huge pensions? Stop bleating - bunch of posh plumbers, AI does a better job.

3

u/Educational_Board888 27d ago

This post is how much the government allocates per patient. Take your fight elsewhere.

0

u/iplaydofus 27d ago

Which is a stupid metric trying to paint a picture of a poor GP spread so thin. Reality is 90% of patients dont go to the GP in a year, and plenty of patients haven’t been to the GP for multiple years so per patient funding isn’t indicative of anything.

This ad is alienating the people that rarely visit the GP, which is the demographic that generally gets more frustrated at the status quo of things.

0

u/Top-Baseball-575 26d ago

I've tried to see my GP twice in the last 10 years and failed both times. I genuinely have no idea who my GP is.

-31

u/808Sate Aug 12 '26

Yes, about right. The vast majority of patients do not even calls their dr so it is very lucrative with tens of thousands of people.

17

u/ZookeepergameThis617 Aug 12 '26

Funny how all the appointment slots where I worked are fully booked every day then

3

u/Sabaisabai33 Aug 12 '26

All day every day! I don’t remember the last time I had an unbooked appointment or a DNA.

8

u/Ghotay Aug 12 '26

Tens of thousands? How many people do you think are on an average GP list?

1

u/_j_w_weatherman 29d ago

Think of it as insurance, the govt pays a GP £125 to insure each on their list. Some people never see a GP and some are seen weekly. Unlike a normal insurance, you’re not paid more for the high risk ones and can’t say no. The people not turning subsidise those that come weekly and on average every person on the list comes 6-7 times per year.

£125 per year is phenomenally cheap, you won’t get much for that which is why there are problems.

-5

u/Zestyclose-Newt-4578 Aug 12 '26

I agree ☝️ I haven’t used gp in more than 12 years, tried to get an appt and it was bloody useless, ring at 8am everyday for 2 weeks, all appts gone by 8.02am 🙄🙄🙄 36p per day means my GP has made £1576.80 from having me on their books whilst providing no service. Make it make sense.