The nhs is falling on its knees :(

@BrowHair95 the NHS is a mess, but this isn't a particularly good example, it just sounds like a series of unfortunate events. Do you know what contraceptive you're meant to be on? Even if not, go to a family planning clinic and they'll sort you out. They're often open outwith normal working hours too.

My NHS is working very well. Able to get dental and eye appointments within a few weeks. Having a retinopathy examination next month. Had a bowel screening test sent through the post last week. Rang up for a breast scan and got an appointment within 10 days. Having a flu/COVID booster today. ALL FOR FREE. I love our NHS and even when things go wrong they sort it out.

@MissyB1 - I'm so sorry to hear all the difficulty you are dealing with. Wishing both you and your DH everything of the best.

It’s very very easy to get lost in the system these days. My dh has a brain tumour, he can’t be treated at our local hospital as it doesn’t have Neurosurgery, so he’s supposedly under the care of a completely different hospital Trust an hour away. You cannot imagine the confusion, mismanagement and misinformation that seems to cause! The two hospitals cannot communicate with each other, neither one wants to really take responsibility for his care. He’s supposed to have regular MRI scans, but we have to fight tooth and nail to get them as both hospitals insist he should be going to the other one! It’s exhausting and very dispiriting.

1. The GP has to wait and see what the consultant is asking then to prescribe
2. PALs is for the hospital, not the GP so threatening your GP with them will achieve nothing.

I don’t want to splash complete detail but I have a follow up blood test needed at GP plus an investigation by the hospital. The absolute mess of the appointments. So far 4 messages to 2 answerphones, 2 messages for me, a mistaken cancelled blood test by the practice, the correct person not being available for a week to take my history so a decision can be made about ongoing tests. The incorrect service number being msg to me so I wasted maybe an hour plus their time as well why we tried to figure out why their number had been given to me.

Seems quite standard for the NHS really.

The lack of a unified IT system, lazy/incompetent management and administrative staff contribute massively to its dysfunctionality.

There’s a complete lack of cohesion between primary and secondary care. It used to be possible to muddle through, but now a lot seems to fall between the cracks and patient care suffers.

Until there can be a unified IT system with all hospitals/GPs/pharmacies about the access the same information, it will be impossible to make any real improvements.

There are many reasons to prescribe medication that's non-formulary:
Formulary Options Not Suitable: When no medicine on the formulary can meet the patient's clinical needs.

Formulary Options Exhausted: When all available formulary medicines have been tried and failed, or are not appropriate.

Supply Problems: If there are issues with the availability of suitable formulary medicines.

Urgent or Emergency Situations: In unforeseen or urgent situations, a non-formulary medicine may be required.

Specialist Advice: On the advice of a specialist, particularly from a tertiary centre, when a patient's condition requires treatment not covered by the local formulary.

I cant decide if its because of years and years of being underfunded and hospitals closed, removal of bursaries etc and then brexit + covid sealing the deal, or whether it's because of bOAt pEOPle & foreigners

This isn’t a GP problem - the gynaecologist should not be prescribing medication that’s non-formulary/currently unavailable (which is increasingly a problem).

Multiple glaring errors and negligence came very close to killing me, my cousin, and my cousin's husband all very recently. Day procedure gone wrong, symptoms ignored, progressing to sepsis, sepsis ignored, septic shock.

I had an appt recently for DD. They did her height and weight and then mentioned a nutritionist for her weight. Turns out her height and weight had been measured completely incorrectly so she was marked as obese - and not only that but they didn't then use their eyes and look at her to realise there had been a mistake. Went in for blood tests and they tested for the wrong thing so had to start from the beginning. Just constant errors from start to finish.

E: having said that it is a total mixed bag because we have also had fantastic care. But I would never just sit back and relax and think the doctors have it all in hand, because that's not reliably the case at all.

A healthcare system is only as good as it's weakest elements. Doesn't matter if there are "pockets of excellence". The average patients' experience will be determined by the system at its worst. Imagine you are having an operation - if four of your surgeons are excellent and the fifth doesn't bother to wash his hands, they might as well all be terrible.

This is why systems go bad very quickly. It only took a few years of austerity to screw things up for the NHS. All you need is enough pay lag to cause some minor understaffing, this leads very quickly to poor outcomes, you then get declining morale and then more understaffing, and suddenly you're in a doom loop.

It will take a long time to climb out of it. OP you have my sympathies.

For me it would work to call my GP and tell them what I need a prescription for and ask that the GP prescribe it for me please and if not I will be writing to PALS as I don't have necessary medication. It would get done then I know it would.

I have started doing this more and more. You also get more choice and quite a lot of medication isn’t very expensive.

I have the same sort of faff between my GP and the pharmacy whenever I try to collect a supply of my meds. Every single time, without fail, the pharmacy says something like; 'You need to contact your GP, it's not here' and then they miraculously find it on the shelf when I ask them to check. Or, the pharmacy say something along the lines of; 'Oh, it's on a 'blah blah blah' prescription not on our 'blah blah blah' system' and I just stand there and stare at them blankly because I honestly don't care what internal (infernal) mechanisms are going on between the GP and the pharmacy, I just want to collect my meds without hassle.

Sick of it.

Good admin staff make all the difference in the NHS, unfortunately there have been many cuts and those who do work in admin often feel under appreciated which effects morale.

OP, consultants secretaries contact details are usually on letters (email and phone number). Or you could call the hospital and ask. It makes a big difference contacting secretaries IMO, although some of them can be more helpful than others.

Try dialling via switchboard and ask for x’s secretary.

You are reading way too much into my post! Please leave me alone now.

Try the switchboard

Or their number might be on any letters the hospital have given you

Your experience doesn't represent the entirety of the nhs, much like mine doesn't. But I'm not the one assuming everyone's experienced it the same way.

In my experience, which is the only one I can talk about with any authority, its always been shit. Deal with it. And quit the personal abuse

As a pp suggested you just need to speak to the consultants secretary and get letters and oprescription sent by email and digitally. I can't remember the last time time I had anything by paper. Once you have everything digitally you can choose where you go and how to access the medication you need.

You started with the bad language, and you said it has always been shit.

Your experience may have been terrible but to accuse the whole service of being shit is an absolute nonsense.

Can it be improved? Absolutely. Has it always been shit? Definitely not

Sorry for your loss, @randomchap , and it's good to hear that your NHS experiences have been positive. That's how it should be for everyone. But can you not understand that healthcare is a lottery, and that many people will not have had the positive experiences you had? You only have to read the childbirth threads on here to be utterly appalled at the complete mismanagement and lack of empathy in some hospitals. It's completely unreasonable to tell someone to "bugger off" simply because their experience doesn't match yours..