Mild back pain or a wisdom tooth. The number of people who unnecessarily call the GP with complaints that are not urgent is increasing. The result is that waiting times can sometimes be considerable in the event of an actual emergency.
“You have had a spot on your forearm for two days and are now wondering if it could be a tick bite?” One call after another comes in this Saturday afternoon at 27-year-old Annemarije van Duijn. For six years she has been working as a triage assistant at the emergency room of the Spaarne Gasthuis in Haarlem-Noord, and in those years she has become increasingly busy.
People have also become more demanding, she says. “They all want to come to the emergency room to see a doctor. But usually that is not necessary.” According to her, the majority of the calls she receives come from people with non-urgent complaints.
General practitioner consulted
In that case, if patients are told that they do not have to visit the GP, it will take her a lot of time to reassure them. “My average conversation time has therefore increased to fifteen minutes last year.” According to Van Duijn, people don’t have to worry that something might be wrong with them.
With every call that comes in, a doctor is consulted. Meanwhile, people who call with really urgent matters have to wait longer and longer. “Every weekend we get people on the phone who have a heart attack and are waiting their turn in the meantime. While they actually need our help immediately.”
“Before people fall, they call the GP post, so to speak,” says Inez te Hennepe, who works as a GP at the emergency post in Haarlem. It is mainly 18 to 40-year-olds, she sees, who call without there being an emergency. “They are of the fast generation and expect a problem to be solved immediately.”
In addition, this group increasingly has to deal with high demands that society and the employer place on them. “They are full in their careers and do not have time during the day to go to their own GP. So they come to us in the evening.”
Phone calls
For some time now, the GP posts in our country, about 107 in total, have indicated that they can hardly handle the many calls that come in to them. The problem lies mainly in the fact that many people call with a request for help that is not or hardly urgent. In 2021, three quarters of all calls were made.
InEen, the sector organization in primary care, and the National Association of General Practitioners (LHV) expect that this number has only increased since then. National figures for 2022 are not yet available, but the emergency post in Haarlem-Noord does have them. Where in 2019 about 52 percent of the calls were not or low urgency, that had risen to 58 percent last year.
“Very worrying,” says Astrid Scholl, program manager Acute General Practitioner Care at InEen. According to her, the number of non-urgent or low-urgent calls must be reduced quickly. “Primary care can hardly handle the number of calls. Real emergencies are increasingly getting into trouble as a result.” She herself thinks that people call the emergency room more often because their own GP no longer has time for them. “If they can’t go there, they call us.”
But clarity can also often be found on the internet, says Scholl, on the Thuis-arts.nl website. “This is not only relieving for our triagists, but also for the patient himself. He then immediately has an answer and does not have to stand in the queue at the emergency post for half an hour, for example.”
“Our consumer behavior has changed in recent years,” says professor Mattijs Numans. “We have become accustomed to a 24-hour economy in which we can go anywhere day and night. And this trend fits right in with that. If people want help, they get it. Preferably immediately.” Numans also sees a connection between the high workload of GPs during the day and the increasing number of calls to the emergency department in the evening and at the weekend. “If people cannot go immediately during the day, they still want to be seen or heard by someone else later.”
Complaints
Back to the emergency room. After consultation with the doctor about the suspicious spot on his arm, triage assistant Annemarije can reassure the man in question. “Because you have no further complaints, the doctor says that you can go to your own doctor on Monday. Keep a close eye on it. And if something changes in your situation, give us a call. ”