Page QQQ Daily Mail, Monday, August 12, 2019
Fortnight wait
to see your GP
ANGER OF WOMEN LEFT
WITHOUT HRT DRUGS
with higher expectations, despite
dreadful government funding.’
It comes as the NHS is experi-
encing its first sustained fall in
family doctor numbers in 50 years,
despite a growing population.
Latest figures show the health
service lost almost 900 full-time
GPs between 2016 and 2018, while
a record 138 GP surgeries shut
down last year. English surgeries
have gained an additional 1.4mil-
lion patients in two years, although
some of these will be duplicates.
Traditional family doctors are alsodying out – with only 48 per cent of
patients in England regularly able
to see the GP they want. This is
down from 65 per cent just seven
years ago, an official NHS survey
found last month.
Baroness Jolly, Liberal Democrat
health spokesman, said: ‘This
looks like the beginning of the col-
lapse of the general practice sys-
tem. GPs are tired, overworked
and do not want to work in inner
cities or rural areas. This needs
more than the Prime Minister
throwing money at it, we need towork with GPs to look at how a 70-
year-old system needs to change
to deliver the service we need.’
Professor Helen Stokes-Lamp-
ard, of the Royal College of GPs,
said: ‘When patients need to see a
GP or member of the practice
team urgently, we are working
incredibly hard to ensure they can
get access – and this is reflected in
the most recent NHS figures. But
people are waiting too long for
routine appointments.’
The staffing crisis has been exac-
erbated by doctors retiring in their
50s to avoid new tax penalties on
their pensions. Reforms intro-
duced in 2016 mean thousands of
GPs and hospital consultants
have reduced their hours.
One 56-year-old GP, who halved
his hours to avoid a tax bill of
£40,000, told the Mail he is one of
the oldest doctors in Gloucester-
shire as so many of his colleagues
are taking early retirement.
A survey by the British Medical
Association found that 42 per cent
of GPs and 30 per cent of consult-
ants had cut back on their shifts
over the pensions issue.
A spokesman for the Depart-
ment of Health and Social Care
said: ‘This survey represents a
small fraction of GPs, and the lat-
est official NHS data shows two in
three appointments happen
within seven days of being booked,
but we are determined to reduce
GP waiting times further.’
Comment – Page 16particularly the case for products
like HRT which we prescribe for
three or six months at a time... it’s
understandable if they get anxious
if their product isn’t available.’
He said there had been a short-
age of HRT over the past year,
although it had become a ‘particu-
lar problem’ in the last few weeks.
‘We’ve been left playing phar-
macy ping-pong,’ he said.
‘We’re issuing prescriptions, the
pharmacies haven’t got them, we
issue a different one, the pharma-
cies haven’t got that.
‘We often have to speak to the
pharmacies to find out what they
have actually got so we can find
something as close as possible to
the prescription the woman needs.
‘It takes a lot of time for GPs
and it’s very frustrating for
patients who find themselves tak-
ing a prescription around differ-
ent pharmacies.’ Dr Hannah
Short, a GP who specialises in the
menopause, added: ‘More and
more of my patients are panick-
consuming, but it can be distress-
ing for patients.’ More than a dozen
commonly prescribed HRT drugs
are out of stock or in short supply.
These include most Elleste tab-
lets, FemSeven Sequi and Conti
patches, Evorel 50 patches and
Estradot patches.
Lloyds’ supplier AAH Pharma-
ceuticals has run out of 15 of the
24 HRT brands it stocks.
Pharmaceutical retailer Alliance,
which is owned by the same group
as Boots, has run out of nine of 27
HRT products while a further five
are low in stock.
A number of factors are behind
the shortage including difficulties
getting hold of ingredients in the
glue that keeps HRT patches
stuck to the skin. When a drug is
unavailable, pharmacists try tomatch the patient with a similar
brand that will continue to pro-
vide the necessary balance of hor-
mones. But alternatives are not
available for some of the out-of-
stock drugs, including combined
patches such as FemSeven Conti.
This means women are put on dif-
ferent forms of HRT that may not
suit them, sometimes causing the
return of devastating symptoms.
A Department of Health and
Social Care spokesman said: ‘We
are working closely with all suppli-
ers to maintain overall flow of
medicines to patients.
‘Supplies of alternative HRT
products are available and any
patient affected should discuss
alternatives with their doctor.’
Survive the menopause- Pages 42 & 43
Continued from Page One
ing.’ Last night the Royal College
of GPs advised women on HRT to
‘start thinking early’ about renew-
ing their prescription.
Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair-
man of the college, said the short-
age was ‘depressing and demoral-
ising for everybody’.
‘For some products, it’s just a
temporary blip while they’re des-
perately manufacturing more,’ she
said. ‘That’s because there has
been a domino effect – demand
has peaked for their products
while others are long-term una-
vailable. For the longer term prod-
ucts, including the patches, it’s
going to be into early 2020 before
the supply issues are sorted.’
She added that GPs and phar-
macists were being kept in the
dark by suppliers about the short-
age because the information was
‘commercially sensitive’.
The GP, who works in Lichfield,
Staffordshire, added: ‘I was on call
in surgery on Friday and this was a
genuine and hugely frustrating
problem – not just in terms of add-
ing to GP workload, as looking for
suitable alternatives is very time-
From Saturday’s MailHot flushes: Louise Minchin in the cold BBC Breakfast studioLOUISE Minchin says the temper-
ature in the BBC Breakfast studio
has been lowered to help with
her hot flushes.
The presenter said: ‘The studio
is really cold now. We have the
“Louise” setting on the air
conditioning.’
The 50-year-old, who recently
completed a triathlon, said she
feels better than ever. ‘I might
have wrinkles, but I’ve got mus-
cles,’ the mother of two said.
The star joined a group of pre-
senters, entrepreneurs and
sportswomen who discussedtheir experience of the meno-
pause and mid-life in Hello! mag-
azine. They included Kay Burley,
Trisha Goddard and ex-Olympic
swimmer Sharron Davies.
Sky News broadcaster Miss
Burley, 58, said: ‘I didn’t used to
talk about it but the young boys
in the office would get embar-
rassed and think, “Why is she so
hot and bothered?” Now I tell
them: “Just having a power surge- it’ll be gone in a minute”.’
She added: ‘There is no better
time in history for women of our
age now.’
BBC’s Louise: I have to keep studio cool
WAITING times for GPs are
at their longest ever – with
some patients left without
an appointment for up to
six weeks.
The average wait to see a fam-
ily doctor has breached two
weeks for the first time on
record, a poll of GPs
reveals today.
It comes amid an NHS staffing
crisis that has led to warnings that
the entire GP system is ‘beginning
to collapse’.
One fifth of GPs said waiting
lists have soared to over three
weeks, while thousands more
patients are unable to get an
appointment within a month.
The average wait for a routine
GP appointment in England has
increased by two days in the past
two years to 14.8 days, a poll of 901
GPs by Pulse magazine found.
One in 20 doctors said their
patients have to wait for more
than a month, and 11 of the GPs
questioned said their waits were
more than five weeks.
The crisis has been exacerbated
by the NHS pensions timebomb
that has seen four in ten GPs take
early retirement or slash their
hours in the past year.
Boris Johnson pledged to
address the pressures on family
doctors in his first speech as Prime
Minister. He said: ‘My job is to
make sure you don’t have to wait
three weeks to see your GP.’
One GP, whose practice has a
four to five-week waiting list, said:
‘We currently have barely any pre-
bookable appointments available
due to lack of capacity.’
Another GP, with a similar wait-
ing list, said: ‘Our list size contin-
ues to grow because there are so
many housing developments.
Patient demand continues to soarAverage patient can’t get appointment
for 15 days ... and for some it’s six weeks!
WOMEN told yesterday how
they are ‘hunting round for
miles’ to try to pick up their
HRT prescriptions.
BEV FITZSIMMONS from London
said: ‘My usual prescription is
unavailable. Symptoms return
with a vengeance plus sleep dis-
ruption equals a very grumpy
old woman.’
CANDICE WATSON from Hastings
in East Sussex said: ‘I’ve now
been given tablets that I was
originally told I shouldn’t take
as I’m a smoker and they are
making my tummy really upset.
What is the point in prescribing
something that is impossible to
get hold of? I wish I hadn’t both-
ered starting the HRT now.’
JANET THURSFIELD from Sutton
Coldfield, West Midlands, said: ‘I
first had a problem with a repeat
prescription just before Christ-
mas and was given an alterna-
tive to try. The menopause has
been a nightmare and the short-
age just adds to the stress.’
VICKI PENN from Leamington
Spa, Warwickshire, said: ‘I used
to have FemSeven patches but
haven’t been able to get it for
over six months. On tablets now
but still trying to find one that
suits me.’
PAULA MENSO from East Sus-
sex said: ‘Why is there a national
shortage of all forms of HRTaffecting thousands of women’s
wellbeing? And what is being
done about it? Fed up with hav-
ing to phone around to source
prescription and then change
meds only to find I can’t get
those either.’
PATRICIA STIEMKE from Essex
was forced to visit several phar-
macies to find just one month’s
stock of Elleste Duo pills. ‘Hav-
ing a disruption in my supply
would certainly have negative
consequences,’ she said. ‘In my
case, it definitely affects my abil-
ity to enjoy being alive – and also
having some sort of libido.’
Pharmacists have also revealed
that women are desperately
ringing around chemists to try
to find one which stocks their
HRT prescription. Christine
Plummer, from Dartford, Kent,
said: ‘I work in a pharmacy and
we have had quite a few ladies
desperately ringing round to
locate stocks of their HRT.’
Another pharmacy worker
wrote on social media: ‘Unfortu-
nately this has been going on
since December.
‘I was working in a pharmacy
and our suppliers were having
trouble getting most HRT stuff
and we had a limited supply
to prescribe.’By Xantha LeathamBy Eleanor Hayward
Health Reporter
HRT drug
shortage