Current GP is awesome Practice is great, clean and brand new. She has a student with her last time, which bugged me a bit but apart from that no complaint about current GPs 5A!!

My personal rule of thumb:

Bedside Manner * Competence = 1

where BM & C are relative to the mean for all doctors.

With the single-handed GP, the practice does sound dangerously run. The fact that the PCT took a year to do anything is expected - they'd struggle to organise a piss-up in a brewery!

Be happy that they've got students to train - it means they have to be at the top of their game. Last thing you want is to be embarassed by a medical student!

Again, the inaction of the PCT is well known. If you want to know where half of all NHS beauracracy/red tape/limits etc are, look here.

I'm one of those people who have white coat terror. Two docs in one room to take blood pressure. BAD!

Well then, you're in luck. If you've not been diagnosed with high blood pressure before and found to have borderline/mildly high blood pressure, the latest guidelines (just published) say you should have ambulatory blood pressure monitoring - a gadget that is strapped to your arm and takes readings every thirty minutes. The bad news is it's probably still expensive/not in widespread use yet.

The biggest problem with using actors to check whether GPs are up to date is that quite often the history doesn't match the examination, so you'd get an incongruent picture, which may throw off a lot of GPs.

Do guys also get the invasive questions such as
Do you smoke? Smoke more than 40cigs a day?
Any chance that you are pregnant
and docs assume everybody sleeps around and drinks/smokes.

All women should be assumed to be pregnant until disproven, goes the old rule.

As for smoking, we have to ask if prompted by the computer. It builds up QoF points. And points mean prizes (or in the case of GPs, the other 50% of our pay that is withheld)!

When I was first diagnosed with kidney stones, the GP I saw jumped to the obvious assumption I was suffering from an STD . I don't know what that says about me.

My Doctor is excellent, totally stereotypical German efficiency but with a nice sense of humour .
The receptionist/admin staff on the other hand are a bunch of stupid idiots.
I was sent to a consultant who received my referral letter and was being very nice to me, which was worrying me more and more especially when he started to talk about treatment for Multiple myeloma!!!! After me interrupting him and a quick phone call to the doctor, the confusion was solved. He was so happy to confirm my doctors diagnosis of multiple lipoma!!

Kidney stones are supposed to be one of the worst pains known to man. I've had female patients claim it was worse than childbirth. So depends on how you presented, how you were examined, and whether they dipped your urine. Also could be related to what's happening in your local community.

I believe that the medication i'm on can't be prescribed to heavy smokers due to clotting ? Good that someone thought of asking!
One of my friend however got delayed on a burst appendix when aged 14 because doctors were sure she was pregnant.

1. Did they do a pregnancy test? That rule that I mentioned was to make sure all women had pregnancy tests (where appropriate).
2. Can I ask what medication you're on that can't be given to heavy smokers? I have some vague ideas. PM if required.