I still can’t believe GPs can be this bad – but they can

February 21, 2025 by Doctor Vernon Coleman

Do not, I’m afraid, expect too much from your own doctors. You may be lucky but, sadly, today’s doctors are rather different to the type of doctor who existed a few decades ago. After being diagnosed with breast cancer, Antoinette telephoned our GP’s surgery to make an appointment.

To my astonishment (and horror) Antoinette was told that she couldn’t have an appointment to see her GP for three weeks or more. Antoinette explained that she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and that for much of August she would be at the hospital every day for radiotherapy.

The receptionist was adamant. The best she could do was to arrange for the GP to telephone her the following week.

On another occasion, not long after her diagnosis, Antoinette had a call from the GPs’ surgery. A receptionist told Antoinette that one of the GPs wanted to speak to her on the telephone. She was told that an appointment has been made for the GP to ring her in eight days’ time. She was told that her GP, who had received a letter from the hospital, would ring her then and tell her something (presumably, possibly to her disadvantage).

We had no idea what the call would be about or what the something might be. We were so accustomed to waiting for news that eight days seemed a perfectly reasonable period of time to wait to receive a telephone call. I like to think that I am a gentle, forgiving sort of person but if I had my way these people would be boiled in oil, hung drawn and quartered, dragged through the streets, beheaded and burnt alive.

Sadly, in order to obtain reasonable care it is sometimes necessary to threaten to complain. All health care systems have complaints procedures which most practitioners prefer to avoid if possible. It is also possible to complain to the practitioner’s licensing body (in the UK, doctors are licensed by the General Medical Council which has the power to remove a doctor’s license to practice) and to the media.

Taken from `What doctors won’t tell you about chemotherapy’ by Vernon Coleman. To purchase a copy CLICK HERE

Copyright Vernon Coleman February 2025