• Question: is there any common misconceptions about your job that you would like to clear up?

    Asked by Harri99 to Simon, Katharine, Emma, Chris on 19 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Emma Rowe

      Emma Rowe answered on 19 Jun 2017:

      Yes, there’s one that always annoys me.
      Nurses are a profession in their own right. We aren’t a step down or demotion from a doctor, we have a completely different role from a doctor. If I get promoted, I don’t become a doctor, I become a senior nurse.
      We work alongside doctors, without each other, we couldn’t do our jobs, but our jobs aren’t interchangeable.

    • Photo: Christopher Symonds

      Christopher Symonds answered on 19 Jun 2017:

      Yes. The fact that most people assume that GP surgeries are run by the NHS. In fact we are all small private partnerships which hold a NHS contract to provide local primary care services. This means that we get paid a set amount of money each month and if the government decides to reduce it or does not increase it by the correct amount the Partners have to lose it out of their own income. This is different to cuts within the hospitals etc as no individual will actually lose any money.

    • Photo: Katharine Bradbury

      Katharine Bradbury answered on 19 Jun 2017:

      Yes – the idea that GPs don’t do any work in the middle of day: in between my morning and evening surgeries I do home visits, process blood and hospital letters, phone patients, attend meetings, issue prescriptions, write hospital referral letters and meet with the junior doctors that I am supervising.

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