Trying to see a GP

                                                     Telegraph letters 8 May 

1

1. Recent correspondence on access to GPs in person, rather than by telephone (May 7), highlights
2. differences in the triage process being practised by surgeries.
3. Many "gatekeepers" have been adequately trained, but others less so, which results in unsatisfactory service.
4. The scrum to phone at 8.30am, then wait to speak to a receptionist, is typical. more
5. No commercial business that valued its customers would do this, but patients have to put up with it.
6. There is an obvious disparity between good surgeries, where a patient who specifically requests a face-to-face appointment will probably receive one, and others where the receptionist is keeping in-person appointments to an absolute minimum. 
7. I am unfortunately registered at a surgery falling into the Iatter category, when only four miles
8. away the opposite seems to be true.
9. GPs who challenge patients' horror stories may just be speaking from their own experience and should not generalise.

Most surgeries, I guess, use receptionists. I have never read about anything else.  However, if they feel better than that title implies then good.

2

This is what one care navigator does:

1. I take part in the morning Triage meeting to review referrals. 
2.  Throughout the previous day and overnight, referrals arrive from local GPs and various professionals requesting input for patients. 
3. Each new patient is discussed and the appropriate discipline is assigned that patient.  more
4. It is challenging to describe the range of patients that find themselves on my caseload. 
5. There's the dementia patient with lung cancer whose family needed a lynchpin to co-ordinate all the visits from professionals, and a shoulder to cry on. 
6. Supporting family and carers is always essential. 
7.  Being at the forefront to coordinate meetings with professionals and families is a common occurrence. 
8. You sometimes need to be creative - on one occasion, I ended up dancing with a patient as I could see he was becoming agitated!  source
9. [[[[ Dancing with Dementia - I have a vast website resulting from five years as an unpaid carer dementia.  It and her heart killed her in 2017. ]]]

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