A GP has taken to TikTok to address a common concern among patients – the feeling of rushed appointments. Doctor Shireen, known as @doctorshireen on the platform, explained why consultations may feel hurried and shed light on the unseen work that happens behind the scenes.
In her video, she expressed her wish to spend more time with patients and urged people not to vent their frustrations at medical staff. She provided a glimpse into the myriad tasks doctors must complete in a limited timeframe, offering a new perspective on the issue – and it’s safe to say there’s a lot that they have to do in such a short space of time which we may not think about.
She said: “I’m going to explain to you guys why when you’ve got a 10-minute appointment with your GP, you only have about two to three minutes with them and sometimes you might feel like you’re being rushed. We are given 10 minutes per patient. There are no gaps in between, we have no added time to write our notes. It’s 10 minutes per patient.”
Discussing what happens in these 10 minutes, she stresses that every second counts, and if you are dealing with an older patient who, for example, moves more slowly, it all takes up more time. She explained: “This 10 minutes includes us opening the patient’s notes, reading through their history, getting up to date with everything, reading the most recent hospital letters, buzzing the patient in, the patient walking into the room, taking the coat off, sitting down, saying hello. This is all eating into the 10 minutes.
“Then we have a little chat, the patient tells us what the problem is. We then want to examine them, get them up on the couch, take their clothes off. And a lot of our patients are elderly, or they’re children, so all of this extra stuff takes a lot of time, then take their clothes off and examine then, wait for them to get dressed again, to come back round to sit with us.”
After the GP has done an investigation and looked at your notes, they then need to explain to you what the plan of action is. She says: “We then explain the examination findings, we explain what we think it is, we come up with a plan and a lot of the time we are sending the patient for tests or investigation.
“So explaining what they are, filling out their relevant referral forms for those investigations or refer them to specialists and writing a letter for them then answering any questions that the patient might have – and often there’s more than one issue. This is why GPs say only one problem.”
Sometimes people often will bring up more than one issue during their time – but as the GP says – this delays things and eats up more time. She revealed: “At the end after they might drop something like ‘oh by the way, Doctor, I’ve got blood in my poo’ and it’s really hard to say leave this for another day. That’s something urgent that very likely would need a two-week wait urgent referral.
“But all of this is in 10 minutes and then we have to write up the notes of everything that we’ve done and seen. So you might feel your GP is only seeing you for two minutes, but the entire consultation is 10 minutes.”
Directing her thoughts to those who complain about this issue and take their anger out on the staff, she kindly explained: “If you’ve got an issue with that, which I think most people do, the issue is with the government and what they’re giving the powers are giving us as GPs. They’re telling us you’ve got 10-minute appointments. if I could have 15 or 20 minutes I would be so grateful, all GPs would.”
She concluded: “We want to have that rapport with our patients we want to provide good care. We don’t want patients to feel unheard or rushed. We want to have that time, but if you don’t, please don’t take out on the GP it’s a restriction we are under.”
In the comments, many people still criticised the GP however. One said: “10mins is very unfair, we wait for days and weeks for an appointment then get brushed off with only 10mins, I want to make the most of that appointment that I’ve waited weeks for.”
In response, the GP said: “I completely understand (and agree). I just wanted to show people what a GP is expected to do in those ten mins.”
Another added: “Wow! We see our preop patients for 30min. Doesn’t include email, referral etc. 10min is impossible for consultation! Once the patient opens their mouth, 10min is not enough.”
