Mid Beds: Going private for menopause help 'out of despair'

The number of patients for every fully-qualified GP across the Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes NHS area has risen steadily in recent years. In August, it had the fifth highest patient to doctor ratio in England.

With a by-election in Mid Bedfordshire coming on 19 October, one voter said she had given up trying to make appointments and relied on walk-in centres, while another paid to go private. A GP said the service was in "crisis".

So how much is healthcare part of the race?

'Banging my head off a wall'

After feeling like she "was banging my head off a wall trying to get anywhere with a GP", Debbie Johnson booked a private consultation "out of despair".

The 48-year-old support worker and beauty therapist wanted help with symptoms of menopause and has now been prescribed new medication.

"Hopefully I'll be able to go back to the GP and say 'look, out of despair almost, I had to go and do this, I think it's helping me, so now can you kind of follow this up?', and hopefully we'll get somewhere," Mrs Johnson said.

She was discussing access to healthcare in Mid Bedfordshire while having her hair styled in Flikz, a salon in Flitwick.

Mrs Johnson said she paid £500 for the medical consultation and three months' medication.

"I was lucky – I was in the position to be able to do that. A lot of people can't," she added.

She and Flikz owner Lisa Walker say the NHS is among their top political priorities.

'Broken system'

"The NHS has got to be the biggest thing," Mrs Johnson continued.

"The doctors, the hospitals – it's a broken system, but I'm not sure how they're going to fix it.

"I've got a lot of friends that work in the NHS and they are passionate about keeping it going and they're also broken physically and mentally about the workload."

She said a new online triage system at her medical practice had given "good results" but she had "given up trying" to phone for an appointment.

Mrs Walker, 44, said she waited two weeks for call back from her doctor, missed the call because she was working and was then told she would need to re-book online.

"It took me two weeks to get that one phone appointment and I've got to start at the beginning again," she said.

She added "if there's anything wrong" with her, she would go to an NHS walk-in centre, rather than the GP "because it's too difficult to get an appointment."

She says Cranfield, where she lives, has been promised a new surgery "for a long time" because "the housing has grown massively but the doctors and the amenities haven't".

But stylist Nasia Anastasi, 29, said an online booking system at her surgery was "so much better".

"I find it a lot easier because before you'd have to call and they wouldn't have any appointments left."

Wayne Morris, 60, and sitting in Ms Anastasi's chair, said: "I've got no complaints whatsoever.

"My appointments I get straight away."

The ratio of patients to doctors across Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes (BLMK) has steadily grown and in August was higher than both the Eastern and England averages. The number of trainee GPs is higher, however.

Dr Michelle Saint, a partner at Houghton Close Surgery in Ampthill, said the ratio there was lower than the BLMK average but that primary care – the services offered at medical practices – was "in crisis".

She said there was "more demand than supply" and that the surgery would soon "run out of space".

The growing number of patients waiting for hospital treatment meant patients were relying more on GPs, Dr Saint added. The backlog was more than 7.5m.

GPs were seeing "a lot more complex patients" who, without a "management plan in place... are getting sicker", she said.

"It's hard because the hospitals are working very hard, but we're having to do a lot extra until the patient can get there.

"Patients are living without diagnoses, but with symptoms. They are having more pain because they are waiting for things like joint replacement.

"They are therefore needing a lot more prescription medications and they are getting sicker before we have a chance to then try and help them to get better, so it then takes them longer recovering as well."

She said the situation was "frustrating" and "demoralising".

The government says there are record numbers, external of "doctors and nurses working in the NHS". It has recruited more than 29,000 extra staff into primary care compared to March 2019.

Those extra staff include paramedics, dieticians and physiotherapists.

"It's good having the allied roles," Dr Saint said, "but we need more doctors and nurses and nurse practitioners to see patients. We need the funding for that [and] we need the space for that."

But there are satisfied patients in her surgery waiting room.

Lee Butler, 77, who had an appointment to remove staples from his neck, said: "They look after us very well. No complaints."

Retired teacher John Jones, 76, waiting for an ECG, said the surgery was "phenomenal".

"They're 10/10," he said. "I walked into today and I'm seeing a doctor straight away and there is never any problem. Whenever my wife and I need to come in, we have appointments fairly quickly."

A spokesperson for BLMK NHS Integrated Care Board said: "BLMK is not alone in experiencing a current shortage of GPs.

"We are working to boost our primary care workforce with clinically trained paramedics, physicians associates, nursing associates and physios to increase the number of appointments available.

"We are also recruiting GPs internationally."

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