GP surgeries: the old and the new

By Richard Hudson in A doctor's life on Friday, April 24, 2009 @ 16:17

In Macclesfield, instead of a GP practice we now have a self termed ‘Super’ Surgery where they’ve taken all the surgeries from across the town and stuck them in one over budgeted, vastly beyond schedule white elephant.

I thought I’d compare the old with the new….

My first memory of my old GP was when you had to try constantly to telephone in to be greeted by a receptionist (obviously with the personal skills of a cross Rottweiler) who (with a vastly over inflated belief in her own medical knowledge) would deem if you were worthy to see a Doctor or not.  If you passed her 20 questions you were given a time slot of 4 weeks on Thursday, by which point you had either fully recovered or had 6 foot of soil placed on top of you.

On the eventful day of arriving you had to arrive precisely on time or else you then became the pariah of the local community as the lovely receptionist who’d previously spoken to added your name to her black list and marked another latecomer on her chalkboard.  Eventually you would be handed a ticket that resembled one you’d get to buy continental cheeses from the delicatessen, looking down at your number 958 you groan as the tannoy calls out 42.

To pass the hour or more wait in the doctor’s waiting room you’d choose between a Reader’s Digest or a 20-year-old Motor’s Monthly. After reading them from cover to cover eventually you’d count the number of missing asbestos ceiling tiles or imagine faces in the earlier mentioned ‘unusual stainage’.

Eventually 958 would get called out and you’d sheepishly enter the Doctor’s room and suddenly regress to days of entering the headmaster’s room at school. Amazingly, whichever symptoms you had suffered from disappearing on entry to the room as if you’d passed through a magical portal. After describing your various ailments you were then instructed to remove your clothing behind a curtain (which I could never understand as the Doctor would be copping a good eyeful a minute later). Several pokings, squeezing of arms and removal of blood samples results in you being told you need a course of placebo A and swiftly moved on for wasting their precious time. A few weeks later you book a slightly more urgent ‘emergency doctor’ appointment where you find you actually had a double hernia.

Okay, maybe the good old days weren’t quite as rose tinted as I thought.

In Macclesfield, instead of a GP practice we now have a self termed ‘Super’ Surgery where they’ve taken all the surgeries from across the town and stuck them in one over budgeted, vastly beyond schedule white elephant.

I thought I’d compare the old with the new….

Fast forward to the present day and the ‘Super’ Surgery.

On first impressions, it’s a Godsend. You call the number and with four rings the phone is answered by a lady who speaks in syllables rather than animalistic gruntings. Then, amazingly enough, you’re given an appointment…within 24 hours. So you actually get to see the doctor with the original ailment you had!

Convenient for the town centre but not exactly handy for old Mrs Scroggins who on a weekly trip to the GPs used to hobble the couple of streets to her ‘local’ GP, the new surgery is now out of town and a nightmare to find.  Inside the dimly lit maze of the car park the spaces barely fit a buggy never mind the vast number of 4x4s and already the scraped walls show a history of casualties.

Once inside you’re greeted by a series of commissioned paintings and a plaque to celebrate the opening of the building just to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing the inflation busting council tax rise was money well spent. You travel to the ‘super’ lift from which pours out Mrs Scroggins who has now become trapped within the building for several weeks wandering the many floors of magnolia walls and beige carpets.  Arriving at your chosen floor you then get bombarded with several doors with the names of the twenty-something surgeries that previously existed. Scanning the doors, you spot your old surgery and wait in turn to be seated.

Looking around, you wonder if you have come to the right place, long gone are the guys coughing up their lungs, but now replaced by the Latte nation with injuries caused by snowboarding and intensive Twittering. The children too have been swiftly ushered into a designated ‘creche’ area where they play with large (so they can’t be swallowed) soft (so they don’t injure themselves) and colourful objects (though not too bright in case they induce a seizure).

After waiting a few minutes your number is called, and you spend a good five minutes trying to get your bearings whilst following the blue route to your designated Doctor and are met by someone who looks similar to a member of  the local ‘hoodie’ gang that the night before had asked you to buy some alcohol from the local off licence.

After a few minutes of chatting with the doctor you’re recommended to see several specialists, prescribed a 6 month course of counselling and been told that your body mass index is dangerously high. You leave feeling far worse than when you first arrived. On your way out you pass by Mrs Scroggins again who has given up any chance of finding home and has set up permanent residence in the lift.

Bring back the good old days.