To find that going to the doctors doesn't resolve the issue

Once you find a private hospital with the consultant you want to see (i.e check for ENT or whatever specialist you need) you just call them and ask. They sometimes do payment plans. A friend went private for a breast augmentation for example and it cost around £6k which she could pay in a lump sum (sounds like a bad pun!) or monthly. The receptionist can explain or the hospital's website usually explains it somewhere. There are private insurance companies such as BUPA where you pay a set amount per month. Then if you have an issue you'd call BUPA, they usually write to you to confirm the amount of treatment, eg x1 ultrasound or scan, x1 consultation and the costings, go to your local private hospital and fill out forms with the numbers BUPA give you (which link to your account) and they pay for you.

It is a lot quicker but not a system I think we should start relying on fully.

You really do have to push these days. I saw a different GP for post menopausal bleeding several times over months. I was prescribed medication for it. On the patient information leaflet it said to take with caution if you have any blood clotting disorder, which I have. So I queried whether I should take it. The GP asked the gynae consultant at the hospital and explained my circumstances.

I suddenly has a two week cancer referral! And guess what, I had cancer. The scan showed a 6cm x 10cm tumour which had been secreting hormones causing the bleeding.

I knew the bleeding wasn’t right but you take yourself off to the GP and trust them to come up with answers. I complained to the practice manager but I was fobbed off. At the time I wasn’t in a good place, so we just changed doctors and I didn’t follow it up.

Can I ask the people who have gone private, how you actually go private ?! I googled private gp in my area...got a result of a private clinic where all the doctors specialised in cosmetic things. I'd happily pay to see a private gp but don't know how to go about it!

I know this will be unpopular but i tend to avoid Drs now and go to a naturopath when I get ill. I also try alternative therapies. It seems to work for me, I found out that most of my ailments including a suppressed immune system were anxiety related

I wonder if the 50% happen to all be women who are pre-diagnosed as psychosomatic?

I think we should all be warning our kids that as soon as you accept anti-depressants or anti-anxiety meds that will be the only thing your GP and other HC professionals will see. A good friend was repeatedly told she had costochondritis (all in her head made up pain because of her anxiety) when it was a pulmonary embolism - they turned her away twice before she ended up in an ambulance unable to breathe.

I think it would help if you could actually see the same doctor. I haven't seen the one I put on forms since 2010 when I moved to my surgery. I just about remember what he looks like but I've had about 6 appointments since then with others, one of which was an old man who had to look up "depo-provera" in a book from 2005 (this was in 2018).

I'm not trying to shame doctors as I do think the situation with funding is a political move and I know doctors don't train for that long and get into that much debt to do a rubbish job. Like any of us, if you are going into a work place with the odds stacked against you and no help in sight, they must be running low on everything and mistakes are bound to happen.

As a previous poster said, vote right (or rather left!).

My mum went to her GP repeatedly with the same symptoms, constantly fobbed off with the standard ‘it’s your age/stress’. Then one day she collapsed when out shopping. Taken to hospital and had to have a five hour operation to fix the problem with her heart which was causing all her issues.

She then went back to the same GP a few years later as we were concerned about her balance and shakes. Fobbed off again by him. It wasn’t until she saw a locum for a totally unrelated issue that it was finally picked up that she had Parkinson’s. Had the initial GP listened to her she would have been on medication much sooner and wouldn’t be as bad as she is now. Took four years to get the correct diagnosis. I’m beyond angry.

I’ve been ill for the last 3 weeks. Finally have a phone conversation with a GP this morning, booked two weeks ago.

It’s a recurring health issue but I shouldn’t have to wait 2 weeks to speak to someone. I did use BUPA as we have it, but the doctor wouldn’t listen to me and prescribed anti anxiety meds with no discussion of how long I’d need them or side effects. I didn’t collect that prescription as I know it’s not flipping anxiety.

Plus my mums bowel symptoms were ignored by her GP now she’s terminal.

“That’s the standard technique of privatisation: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.”

Chomsky

I wish the Labour Party would be clearer in their messaging that the Conservatives have been working on this for 10 years and it's working exactly as they planned it. Those who can are going private. Those who can't, well who cares about them anyway? They all need to try harder and get better jobs and then they can have stuff like healthcare and a decent education for their kids.

That is indeed the Conservatives' plan. It's not a secret.

we need to vote them out

We have had really good experiences with out local GP practice - and short wait lists for minor things such as I had a call from GO about my cholesterol recently and she noticed my could was due for removal so she did a HRT consultation at the same time and I had a coils removal appt arranged by text 2 weeks later.

I wish I could find the link now but I read a study once that around 50% of the time doctors had decided, before the appointment with the patient, that the symptoms were psychosomatic. 🤷🏻‍♀️

YANBU. I haven't been back to see my GP in over a year, even though I need to. I was given a mumbled diagnosis last year and told I'd be referred to x, y and z, thank you and goodbye - went home and googled what they'd told me and had to find out at home, on my own, from the internet, that I have a rare brain tumour. I don't think I'll ever forgive or fully trust them after that.

My neurosurgeon is great and calls it what it is, as did the A&E doctor on the one occasion I ended up there recently, but I feel like I was totally failed by my GP that day and I'm now having counselling through a charity to process that.

I have found that they take one look at the fact that I previously took anti depressants and dismiss my problems as being anxiety related.

I have been back and forth to the GP over the last year or so coz I feel awful and one doctor (male i might add) just told me that i was probably just tired and stressed from having two children and needed to make more time for self care!

I have finally found one GP at the practice who has taken me seriously but I do get told a lot that I am too young for it to be anything serious!

A few years back I started getting intermittent severe stomach pains. During one particularly bad one, my husband dialled 999, convinced I was dying. This was during the pandemic and obviously they were busy so a paramedic rand me back a couple of hours later and it eased off so mindful of the stress they were under in a&e I cancelled it. They advised a GP follow up and i got a phone appointment a few days later.

In the interim, I consulted Dr Google. I know Dr Google is controversial, but in my favour, I'm a nurse who uses it sensibly. Gallstones came up time and time again. Most sites suggested the pain is to the right but can also be central which it was with me. Anyway I put Gallstones to the GP as a possible diagnosis, and asked for a scan. She was dismissive because of the site of the pain but agreed to the referral to rule it out.

The scan showed my gallbladder was full to bursting with stones, and I was referred for surgery. I had a phone call with the hospital who hadn't received my scan, but were again dismissive because of the site as it wasn't to the right. I told them to tell the writers of the NHS website who suggested it could ge central.

Eventually the scan was received, the diagnosis was accepted and I was given an urgent surgery referral, and given covid delays was seen quickly.

Even on the day of the surgery, the surgeon was saying, 'yes you've got gallstones but we don't think that's causing the pain, it's the wrong site.' Cue more eye rolling from me. Post surgery, he came back and said as a matter of course they count the stones. Most have about 4 or 5. They lost count at 200, and weren't surprised I was in pain. I felt totally vindicated.

I think if I wasn't a nurse and was able to be assertive I wouldn't be taken seriously.

So you are complaining about your own failure to complete paperwork and admin for your own health? That is your fault, not the fault of the NHS or dentists.

I’ve found it really hit and miss and I wonder if part of the issue is that I don’t have a specific GP who actually know me, it’s just whoever happens to be available. So if you go in with something obvious/testable like a UTI or tonsillitis it’s all fine but I have a chronic illness (long Covid) and trying to get any sensible medical help has been largely impossible. There’s one doc in my practice who actually gets it and tries to help but there’s no continuity of care and having to explain things from scratch time and time again to varying degrees of scepticism is exhausting.

Interesting @Bumblebeeinatree I didn’t get any pelvic floor info from the continence nurse. I’ve spent years building my own pelvic floor with exercises and a Kegel trainer. No other referral was available so no further treatment for me. Glad you had other referrals

I have very low ferritin which my gp believes is due to my heavy periods… I don’t have heavy periods but what do I know, apparently my gp knows better. I’m due another blood test in 2 months and then he might push for an iron infusion if this last attempt at tablets doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked since 2020 but sure, let’s try for anything 3 months in 2024 having taken iron tablets for the last 4 years.

This

Yanbu

I can’t help but wonder if there’s some sort of key word that unlocks help.

I have a teen who has health issues and it’s taken years for him to get tests and scans 😡 I don’t want to be rude or aggressive but I think that being too nice has cost him precious time. I was fobbed off with reasoning like he must be bullied, I am attention seeking and I am overly anxious. An MRI showed issues so did I get an apology? Of course not.

They send to continence clinic for pelvic floor exercises which may help with prolapse. I had absolutely no continence problems although some people with prolapse do. My GP agreed it was a really bad prolapse I was referred to the continence clinic but at the same time also referred to the hospital for possible surgery or other treatment, the hospital appointment came pretty quickly and surgery not much longer after that so I hardly got the pelvic floor treatment bit. The hospital also said the outcome from surgery is better if your pelvic floor is strong so they push for the pelvic floor bit. They also don't like surgery for prolapse if you are under a certain age apparently.

The partners at my old practice are so run off their feet that they also do the following:

Partner 1: interested in dermatology and also has a private dermatology clinic. Advises patients to go there.

Partner 2: A director of a cottage hospotal commissioned to provide NHS services (minor) by the CCG as well as treating private patients. Also the school.Dr for a local boarding school.

Partner 3: GP chair of the CCG

Partners 4 and 5: private GP appointments available through some of the local.private hospitals.

If patients are lucky they get to see locums or pretty poor salaried GPs.

It speaks volumes.

The receptionists are paid minimum wage.

I recently changed practices - it's a life changer.