Ear issues

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Chris J Dixon laid this down on his screen :

I have had that excercise suggested to me by the surgery.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, that's actually very good. Remember that the GP is who you see, Who you don't see is the receptionists, the nurses, the girls doing the accounts, the amount of time writing up your notes, the amount of time writing letters to the hospital etc etc. And the people making out the prescriptions and what you don't cost is the amount of money in the kit invested in the surgery

15 years ago my niece set up a dentists practice. She borrowed £1m. Each dentist room had around £250,000 worth of kit in it

(Its the same with your local garage - if its a main dealer with all the special tools, guaranteed work and training courses £160 an hour is par.

And that's why they always replace everything and only buy manufacturer approved kit. That's how they can guarantee the job.)

An operation is likely to be something like £3000 an hour

ICU is maybe £3000 a day

[The Natural Philosopher]

My GP was very strict,. 12 minutes or book a double appointment. Then there was always about 5 minutes gap while he wrote up patients notes. These days he just says 'I have put you on my call list' and he phones me when he gets a spare slot.

Much better. Don't have to sit on a disease ridden waiting room being spat at by snotty kids

So in surgery 2 patients an hour.

The nurses who do blood tests and vaccines zap you through in about 4 minutes flat!

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, three patients an hour, with half the time looking at your notes before you come in and writing up your notes afterwards

[R D S]

Thanks, I'll take a look.

[NY]

My previous GP used to have no gap between one patient and the next, for reading previous notes and writing up notes from today. I've seen him come to the waiting room to get the patient before him, then I've seen that patient leave and seen the doctor appear within a few seconds to call me in. There's a little bit of note-taking/typing during the consultation, though often not much more than would be needed for sending a prescription to the in-house pharmacy.

I've not yet seen my current GP, because in the two years I've been with him I've not had anything wrong with me. I've had a few check-up appointments with nurses - blood pressure, blood samples, flu injection, annual review of long-term medication - but no actual GP appointments.

[Max Demian]

Idiopathic? (But who's the idiot?)

[SH]

idiopathic means no known cause

[newshound]

Agreed. Presumably that figure did not come out of the air, and covers not only nurses and other support staff, and also the time the Doctor spends not with patients. Three appointments per hour sounds about right to me. OK a doctor may see more than that in a morning surgery, but I bet they then spend the afternoon writing to hospitals, trying to figure out what test results mean, researching their more unusual cases etc.

[Chris Bacon]

Oh, God! "Farceberk".

[Owain Lastname]

I understand that.

Gogodoc is £35, Doctorcareanywhere is £60 or unlimited for £349 for family of 4 for a year, and Livi is £29 including prescription writing and sick notes. Bupa is £49 phone or £70 in-person for 15 minutes.

As I assume none of them are running the service at a loss, I still question how they can do a 15 min appointment for £70 but a NHS GP is more than double. And I know the private services are somewhat self-selecting in that they don't get the deprived populations with chronic conditions the NHS gets.

says that 7,001 practices in England were paid on average £155.17 per registered patient, PMS practices were paid £154.63 and APMS practices ? which made up just 2.5% of practices ? received £172.80.

Dental surgeries are expensive to set up. I expect the insurance is expensive as well as they do actual surgery.

I think my dentist averages about £500 an hour for private, and that includes the nurse and the consumables used.

Owain

[Peter Able]

Not much use when it is due to a cerebellar tumour. Get an enhanced head MRI. Just in case.

PA

[Tim+]

I?m guessing you don?t live in the UK.

Tim

[Chris J Dixon]

...sceptics...

My spell check seems to have gone west. :-(

Chris

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I think I'd insist on an ent if it goes on for a long time or is getting worse over time. Most ear problems are transient and clear up with medication, every so often one does not and you do need to try to fix it or it could be permanent damage. Is it actually hurting or merely causing dizzy spells and ringing. It all sounds like inner ear related to me, so doing things at the other side of the drum might be just not getting to the problem. There are so many things that can happen in those tiny canals you really do need a specialist. Brian

[SH]

There is also Acoustic neuromas too to think about, which again can be seen on MRI scans

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

Ear Calm

[The Natural Philosopher]

Actually post posting that I looked it up - he said 'atopic dermatitis' which is just a fancy name for 'eczema'

[The Natural Philosopher]

And making home calls in some cases.There are also masses of new information assaulting them - new drugs that have new side effects and may be contraindicated with specific conditions, need to have all that information absorbed into the doctors head.

Doctors make a fair wage, but they work for it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well there is no doubt that the NHS probably wastes about half its money on needless administration, kit and bureaucracy.

When my sister fell down Table mountain and smashed her clavicle ribs and punctured her lungs, she was annoyed that she had to queue (some weeks later) for nearly half an hour for an X-ray at a private Xray clinic.

I pointed out that they were keeping their expensive X ray machine fully utilised. And her costs down.

In Addenbrookes, I used to wander down from oncology to X-ray for my 6 monthly chest Xray and it would be empty with 2 out of three machines idle.

I did get bumped off a cat scan machine for a motorcyclist with a fractured skull tho.

Yes teh NHS is probably about halkf as efficient as it could be, but it is so politicised and unionised that the mere mention of streamlining , or using proper quality control procedures like ISO 9000 is met with snarling hissy fits and screams of 'tory cuts' from all of the admin and nursing staff.