Doctors and pharmacists
General practitioner
Your everyday doctor, and usually the fastest route to prescriptions, referrals, certificates and anything that will not wait for a specialist.
A GP knows you rather than the condition, which turns out to matter. They handle the ordinary medical things that keep happening alongside ALS/MND, write most of the prescriptions and referrals, and are usually the only doctor you can see within days. Many people underuse them because they assume the specialist is the right person for everything.
How you reach this person, and who pays, depends on where you live. Set your country in Location and Compass will show what applies there.
What they can help with
- Repeat prescriptions and adjusting doses between specialist visits
- Referrals to therapy, community services and specialists
- Ordinary illness, which does not stop happening
- Certificates, forms and reports for benefits, work and insurance
- Home visits in some systems, when getting to a surgery has become hard
- Coordinating with your MND team, if you ask them to
- Care of the person caring for you, who is often their patient too
When you might meet them
- Anything urgent that is not an emergency
- Prescriptions, forms and referrals
- When you are unwell in an ordinary way
- When you need something written for a benefit or insurance claim
- When the person supporting you is not coping
Things you could ask about
- Can you be the one who coordinates between all of this?
- Would you do a home visit if getting here becomes difficult?
- Can you set up longer appointments for me?
- Are my records shared with the MND team, or do I need to tell you both?
Not to be confused with
Not a lesser version of a specialist. In most systems the GP is the only doctor with a complete view of everything happening to you rather than one part of it.