Thread: Doctors Signature Requirements Cambridge Diet

To clarify if you have a medical condition that isn't contraindicated, on medication or have a BMI 40 or above you MUST go to the GP with your MRF before starting ANY of the programmes. This has not changed.

If, for any reason, the GP will not sign the form the only programme you can follow is the 1200 cal one. If it is a BMI issue alone, you can then follow this plan down to BMI 40 then move on to SS or SS+ with the CDC just writing to inform the GP you have done this. If its a medical condition or medication issue you would not be allowed to go below 1200 cals even if your BMI was lower than 40.

If you do not need to see GP for any of the above reasons if you choose to do SS only, the counsellor has to write to your GP this is different from above as it is a courtesy letter not one asking to confirm your medical details.

If you do not want the CDC to contact you GP the lowest you can do is SS+ which is 615 calories. If your BMI is over 40 you can do SS+ if GP okays it otherwise only 1200 cals.

Linda

I went 2 my doctor, 2 get him 2 sign mine, at first he refused, then i explained i wasnt asking him 2 condone it, just 2 confirm the details were true. To which he laughed at me, sent me 2 reception to hand the form in to go thru 'admin' as he couldnt posibily do it there and then, costing me £30!!!! I wasnt in his room any more than 3minutes, and he had my records up on screen, coulda checked easily enough and gave 1 signiture! Yet when i go back 5stone lighter he'll be full of praise! Makes me mad!!!!

Some people seem to have dreadful G.P.'s!! £30?? Mad

Oh i was fuming. I couldnt belive 4 3minutes work !!!! And the best bit, id not been 2 the docs 4 about 18 months before that!!!! I pay all these taxes and they cant even give me a signature free!!! And i thought each patient got allocated 10minutes, surely him checking my records and puttin 1 signature on paper would have counted as my 10 minutes!!! lol Im curious if the money goes straight to the docs or the surgery x x x

Poor 'trapped'. I'd feel the same. I think you have been unlucky. Do you think in future that a different partner might be more sympathetic?

The money goes into the practise coffers by the way & not to buy a chinese take away for the doctor concerned.
They are totally within their rights to charge as it is not NHS business,but as you said,he could've signed & stamped the form in the time he spent trying to refuse & then sending you back to reception.

To put the other side of the picture a GP friend of mine said recently that these sort of forms are multiplying & becoming ridiculous.
A common scenario is: fat patient in surgery with moans & groans. amongst other things discussed GP suggests that he/she should join a gym where staff will tailor & supervise appropriate graded exercises blah blah.
A week later patient is back infront of GP weilding a form. Gym staff won't allow him/her to use equipment without doctors sig. Patient embarrassed/exasperated, but Gym insistant on this despite being told repeatedly that GP had recommended this in the first place!



That said, I will now give you my tally after 9 months as a CDC

1. No clients refused by docs,(unless you include one lady with complex medical problems who was borderline for acceptance on the diet & who would have required hefty supervision from the practise).

2. Only one client charged by gp =£20. this annoyed me slightly as the young woman had medical reasons for needing a BMI under 25 & Cambridge was actually suggested to her because it is a low fat diet.

In the end we avoided the GP fee by getting her hospital consultant to sign the form in out patients. HA HA !!

3. One GP wrote 'signed with reluctance as I don't approve' on the form of an elderly man with medical probs & only doing the 1000 plan. I though this a bit unnecessary, but will try & woo him if/when I get another client from their practise. ( when I say woo, I actually mean EDUCATE, but I wrote woo incase he is reading this!)

4. one Gp actually rang me up to support my efforts in helping one woman. What a nice woman & good doctor!

5. 2 local GP's have sent me clients (yikes! scary! Cant afford to fail)

6. The majority feedback I get when clients return with their forms signed is that Docs are only too pleased to see their patients making the effrt to do something about their weight.


In the long term, all your doc has done is charge you the equivalent of a weeks supply of CD-nosh. When you go back 5stone lighter & he is speechless with admiration, that might be a good time to aks him not to charge furutre CD-ers that come to him waving the dreaded form.


PS. As you may be aware, the regs have changed recently. Anyone doing less than 600cals even if on no meds etc, must have their doc informed. Considering my GP friend's story above..can you imagine their joy at having any number of these letters arriving. I've lost count of the number I've sent out. I wonder how many have been filed under 'B' for bin?

I went to see my doctor yesterday to get the confirmation, and she was really pleased i'd chosen to do something about my weight (and it's a lot of weight, trust me!!) and not only signed the form after reading the "notes for doctors" section, but also said that she would book me in for every 2 months so they can monitor my progress, and then once i reach a healthy weight, she then mentioned they will help with the maintenance! I thought this was awesome!!! She also mentioned that she'd actually recommended the Cambridge Diet to overweight patients in the past, but it had been so long since she'd heard about it she thought it'd stopped running, but now she knows it's still running she'll be recommending more people. She was a really nice doctor.

Lucky you ,
My GP charged me then when I went back 6 months and 6 stones lighter , he didnt bloody recognise me ! He said well you know when people lose a lot of weight they change completely, and I ve not seen you for ages. I think he meant I was more assertive because I reminded him that he had charged me to actaully save the NHS money, as I no longer need the 3 types of meds I was on simply because I was so obese, and hadnt needed to visit the practice in all that time.
CHeek

Do you think that he'll feel able to drop any charges on CD forms from patients in the future, as a result of your successful transformation?

Gosh i remember going to my doctor asking him to sign the forms.. i actually thought he would.. but he laughed & said no, he can't give his permission.. i was sooo devestated. I didn't think i could do it unless he signed the forms.. i had to loose half a stone before i could start soul source.. so i had the 2 shakes a day with the meals, and went back to my councellor on the monday and i had lost the 7lb! wooo.. just shows you don't actually need the doctors LOL x

When I went to see CDC I told her my GP's sugery and she said don't bother wasting my time they wont sign any forms!!! I'm doing the SS+ so now I dont need their "permission" to go on the diet. Surely if you have decided to take control of the weight situation it is a positive thing!

my first doc signed the forms no problems he just took 30 minutes reading through the litrature ( wasnt charged for the time he took either ) and consultant was extatic about it
but ive moved to a completly different area where they only ever have one gp working at a time and it takes a week or more to get an appointment and bless her the gp can never understand half of what i say so now worried i wont get the form signed

Hiya

I had to pay £15 which makes me so mad as they give you free stop smoking patches, and free drug/alcohol rehabilitation, but if you need to lose weight you always have to pay.
The government keep on and on about the obesity problems but how can those of low incomes afford to diet? Ok I hear just stop eating, if it was that easy wouldn't everyone be slim?

Lomi

you say the doc has to be informed does that mean that you tell the doc how heavy i am ???

My Doc took my blood pressure and had a chat with me.Apparently she refers patients to LL. She wanted to know how CD worked and how much it cost as she said that LL was "really good as you get all the food you need for the week and it only costs £80". I nearly passed out!!

I told her that I had only been doing it a week and that it depended on the type of foods that I bought (ie shakes, bars & tetras) but that my first week had only cost me £40 odd (at that time I was on 4 CD meals a day).

Definitely gave her food for thought. She wished me all the best and signed the form. GOD BLESS HER!!

I called my surgery beforehand to ask what the process was for getting forms signed and explained what it was for. After I told them it was CD they asked me if that was LL (!!) and when I said that no, it was CD they said they didn't know if the Dr would sign it because it wasn't LL.

Anyway, I took the form to the surgery with the information that my CDC gave me for the Dr, and it took them two weeks and £15 to sign it off.

And, right, I am fairly new to the surgery but have lived in the UK for 7 years and my new surgery have had my files transferred from my old one.

They wrote on the form that I was new to the surgery and they had no info on me (!!!) and would only sign that they had seen it without taking responsibility for adverse results!

How unhelpful is that!? Luckily my lovely CDC is much nicer

Dee x