If your GP is no good, and you live in an urban or suburban area, you can get another tomorrow. Of course, this isn't always the case in rural areas, but you still have a right to healthcare and you should fight for it.
The obstacles in your path are the Referrals System and the Catchement Areas System. These work together to keep patients in the control of individual GP's, but they only work if you passively accept this control. Don't.
AfME have withdrawn their File of Sympathetic Doctors indefinitely, and we haven't managed to get the online directory up just yet, but very soon, you should be able to obtain the name & hospital address of the nearest consultant who is sufficiently well-informed to be able to diagnose ME. Then what you will need is a referral, so you can start work on this now by going to your local support group meetings.
See if you can find a fellow sufferer who has a halfway decent GP. If you're actually in the catechement area of one already, then you need look no further. If not, then you may need to pay a visit to your nearest main Post Office. They will have a list of all practising GP's for miles around.
Remember though, that in urban localities, a GP's catchement area is likely to be about 1 mile, so only write down those that are in your suburb. Then try one after the other, systematically, but being honest and on-the-level with each one about what you are doing : you are simply an ME Sufferer trying to get access to healthcare. All you are asking for is a referral to a consultant whose opinion you can trust.
A GP who has actually referred you to a consultant for his or her opinion will be very hard pushed to dismiss it, or to argue with the diagnosis or reccommended treatment; besides which, a GP who is helpful enough to give you the referral you've asked for is probably not confrontational by nature anyway.
If you find you're in a medical blackspot, having consulted all the GPs you can and yet facing a stone wall, then the problem is trickier. If you also need support for a benefits claim (Incapacity or DLA) then it can get trickier still. But don't give up.
You need to get to know your local fellow sufferers even better. What you now need is an address that you can use that iswithin the catechement area of a decent GP.
So find someone who says they have a helpful GP and befriend them. Be patient, but ultimately honest: when you know them well enough, tell them what you want and why. Show them this page. Anyone with ME (or ME in their family) will understand.
Their address is a potential lifeline. As far as the GP is concerned, you are a lodger who met your landlord/lady through the local ME support group. If there is no benefit complication, then all that will happen is that a card with your NHS number and new GP details will be posted out to that address by a computer. All you need is someone who will not return it to sender.
Now you can get a referral to see your chosen consultant, you can get a formal diagosis, support and treatment. The only cost is that you can never, never call your GP out. It's surgery visits only, or your ruse is rumbled!
Of course, if you need support for benefits, then it gets more complicated. You will need a real friend, a local fellow sufferer who is prepared to go a little further to help. But if support groups mean anything, it is that such help can be sought and given. Enough said.
There are few sufferers who really try to obtain access to healthcare and really cannot get it. The only insoluble problems I've encountered are sufferers on benefits in remote rural districts with a local surgery that is hostile to the diagnosis. In which case, it's maybe time to contact your local paper, as well as the Citizen's Advice Bureau ; or you could get even more cunning.
You have a right to sensible, practical and constructive medical advice and treatment, and you can get it. It's up to you.
Del Kennedy