Doctors Explotation ....

[Dinger2]

After recuperating for 5 months (still am)after a total knee replacement,I decided that I felt well on the way to recovery and made contact with my boss in the café at the local hospital to say I felt ready to come back to work in my volunteer job one day a week for 4 hours.She said yes,welcome back.After being back 2 weeks and enjoying the light exercise,my boss tells me the volunteer office (of the local health trust ) being aware of my return (Iam a retired person age 64) now require me to furnish them with a letter from a doctor saying that Fit and capable to work,so I went to the doctor and asked her could she oblige me with a two sentence letter saying I was fit to work in my volunteer job for the NHS (the same organisation that pays her around £130,000 p.a) She said yes but Iam doctor not a secretary I will write you a letter but it is not in my remit and will cost you £10 ! I said I will ask the trusts volunteer office to pay it as I'm damned that I will pay £10 for the privelige of working for nothing.They said they are a charity and can't afford it even though they paid £20 for my CRB check over a year ago and they have 2 or 3 paid staff ! Iam disgusted about this and am on the verge of writing to the local newspaper exposing this explotation. Can any A.B.er tell me is this doctors request for £10 a legal doctors "perk" or a scam?

[Mamyalynne]

They are indeed allowed to charge , here is an article from last year.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-your-money-23693468

[Buenchico]

GPs are self-employed. They enter into a contract with the NHS to provide certain services in return for a regulated scale of payments. Everything else they charge for.

So, for example, if you reach the age of 60 the NHS will pay your GP to give you a free health check. The NHS will then pay for a similar check-up every two years. But if you simply want a check-up at any other time (either before you're 60 or additionally to the free health checks thereafter), perhaps to convince a prospective employer that you're fit to work, your GP will charge you (usually heavily) for it because it's not something that the NHS pays them to do.

£10 for a basic 'fit note' is exceptionally cheap. Many GPs would insist on giving you a full health check (at between £80 and £200).

Providing a service costs money and people are entitled to charge for such services. For example, I used to run a railway station. People would often come into my office and say "I left my laptop on a train half an hour ago. Have you got it?". I'd then reply "Yes. It's here. That's £50, please" They were never pleased but I knew that the law allows a charge of up to 10% of value for retrieving lost property and my employers obliged me to collect it!

So I'm with the GP on this one. Sorry!

[Buenchico]

PS:
As an analogy, when I was teaching in the 1980s (when children were usually included on a parent's passport, rather than holding their own) there was always a sudden rush for Year 11 students (approaching the age of 16, when they needed their own passport) to get get photographs countersigned by someone 'of good standing' who had known them for several years, which usually meant their class teacher. I actually did them free of charge but most of my colleagues charged a fiver for doing so, simply because it wasn't something that they were otherwise paid to do.

[Cloverjo]

I know they are entitled to charge, and I shouldn't be bothered when GPs do, but it upsets me when people enter a caring profession and then milk as much money out of the system as possible. How much time and money did it cost the GP to dictate a two-line letter? Almost none.

[Sqad]

\\How much time and money did it cost the GP to dictate a two-line letter? Almost none.///

You are not paying for the time it took to "dictate a two line letter" you are paying for the effort of years of study and endeavour that took place to get into a position of being authorized to "dictate a two line letter."

\\\\enter a caring profession and then milk as much money out of the system as possible.\\\

Being caring does not pay your mortgage, educate your children or pay the grocer's bill.

[vulcan42]

I helped an old lady across the road last week, should I have charged her?

[murraymints]

They can charge for letters ,signing passport applications etc. I'd cough up..excuse the pun

[Cloverjo]

I know Sqad, but they don't really need that extra tenner-they already have a massive salary-whereas the volunteer doesn't.

I see your point but it still upsets me.

[Sqad]

cloverjo

\\\\I know Sqad, but they don't really need that extra tenner-they already have a massive salary-whereas the volunteer doesn't. \\\

Yes, i agree, but this is State medicine, with the BMA a strong union negotiating unrealistic (in my opinion) settlements for it's members.

The other point is that if it was known that a certain GP signed passports free of charge, then he would be inundated with requests.

[Cloverjo]

I don't object to them charging for passport signing, and I am coming around to your view that they should charge for letters about fitness to work as a volunteer. I am bothered that my son was charged £20 for a letter to say he was not fit to work, while he received only £58 per week in sickness benefit. How was he supposed to eat, that week? However, this is going off the OP's question. Sorry, Dinger2. As you can see, it's not a scam.

[woofgang]

So the principles seem to be that other people are allowed to decide whether or not someone "needs" the money and that if you enter one of the so called "caring professions" you aren't allowed to be paid well?

[wired]

Most professionals charge for a letter or signature and many GPs are asked to sign for many things as they are trusted by lots of organisations, my solicitor charges me "letter rate " for sending the bill!