North West GP says NHS is under pressure because patients have ‘inability to wait for anything’

A GP has warned that the building pressure on NHS doctors and A&E staff is a result of patients having an ‘Amazon Prime mentality’.

Dr. Johnathan Griffiths, a GP in Winsford, Cheshire, voiced his controversial opinion in his online blog, where he discusses current and trending issues within healthcare and the NHS, according to Cheshire Live.

There, he claimed Emergency Departments are struggling to keep up with ‘increased demand’ thanks to a number of different factors, one of which being patients having ‘high expectations’ and the ‘inability to wait for anything’. 

He wrote: “We talked about the ‘Amazon Prime’ mentality that we all now have – high expectations and inability to wait for anything.

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“There are significant numbers of people aged thirty-fifty presenting to the ED [Emergency Department] with undifferentiated symptoms that are possibly better managed by GPs. These individuals do not want to wait for GP assessment and want everything investigated and sorted in one trip. This is what they get in the ED.”

Dr. Griffiths added that, despite having to wait for hours and, in some cases, throughout the night in the ED, patients will get the opportunity to receive blood tests and x-rays so will recommend visiting to their friends.

He wrote: “By and large, they have nothing wrong with them and should never have been there in the first place.

“In our conversation we were both concerned that people seem to be less able to self-manage minor illness and seem to be presenting at earlier stages. This is certainly true in General Practice where we are seeing patients seeking help after a few hours of a sore throat or cough.”

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Dr. Griffiths offered some potential solutions that could make a ‘positive difference’ to the issues the NHS is facing, which included more public facing communications as he feels there is a ‘disconnect’ between expectations and the reality of what NHS services are currently able to provide.

Since the start of the pandemic, the number of people waiting for NHS treatment in England grew by a fifth, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who found that 5.3 million people were waiting for treatment in May 2021, a jump of 4.4 million from February 2020. 

Health Secretary Sajid Javid, previously warned that the crisis is ‘going to get a lot worse before it gets better’, writing on Twitter: “The Covid backlog for appointments is sadly going to get a lot worse before it gets better, as more people start to come forward.

“Tackling that is going to take time – but it will be one of my top priorities.”