To be totally fed up with the sorry excuse that is the NHS?

@Carlie97 your situation sounds very similar to mine. Have you been offered Zoladex injections? It’s an absolute game changer and saved my life. I was so anaemic I needed a blood transfusion. I couldn’t wait for the NHS to follow up with an iron infusion so I paid privately again, brilliant. Happy to give more information by p.m. or on here if you need it. Good luck.

I'm sorry you're struggling but it sounds like the quickest way to get help is to go to the appointment later today if that is still an option. You could be waiting months or years in your new area

Ask the doctor for tranaxamic acid its a life saver. I also have endo problems and have iron infusions due to heavy bleeding. These should have been offered to you. I think you can buy them too without perscription

I have endometriosis and the NHS have been bloody brilliant with me. Getting the diagnosis was difficult because the male doctors were useless but since I've been diagnosed they're really looking after me with 6 monthly scans, blood tests (iron and cA125) and appointments with the gynaecologist. I had a minor op earlier this year and I was so well cared for. Couldn't fault them.

Sorry you're having a tough time OP. I'm posting for balance 💐

I’m going through similar at the moment. Bleeding since August 2024. 3 hysteroscopies and biopsies, polyps removed under GA, mirena coil put in which got stuck in my cervix for months then came out in a huge clot. I’m finally having a total hysterectomy but been waiting 7 months already.

Insist on entonox (gas and air) for the biopsy and Hysteroscopy. They can get it and should have it anyway. It does make it bearable. And as other posters have said, if it was men going through this it would be very different!

So sorry to hear this OP, haven’t RTFT but have you thought of getting PALS involved (patient liaison service)

I think anyone with experience of the NHS and a European model will tell you that the NHS is a complete mess. I worked in the NHS for years, and now live in a European country. There is no comparison in the care, that's why European outcome measures -particularly for cancer - are so much better.

As someone who works for a private company paid to provide an NHS service, I promise you the private sector in the UK is much much worse than the NHS run equivalent. Frankly, be careful what you wish for.

I would prefer any of the European models.

Honestly this sounds like a lot of ‘what if’ worrying. The NHS have given the job to the private sector which you are already writing-off as a disaster before you’ve even got there?

The mirena coil and tablets work and stop bleeding. It's choice to refuse both. I was changing pad 1/2 hourly 24 hours a day. No sleep as I was constantly up and down, I got the coil and pills and it stopped within a day.

Haha very good.

(Not everyone will like the joke about taxation, though, so you might have to be prepared for flak.)

Hi!

Going to avoid the NHS bun fight, I’ve had brilliant and less so care; however I couldn’t privately afford all the care of had.

I wanted to offer some reassurance on the hysteroscopy without a general. I had one 2 years ago, just had gas and air; I was very nervous as I’ve struggled with similar procedures including breaking a speculum 🤦‍♀️. However the procedure was fine, gas and air was good and the staff were utterly lovely.

Sorry you’re having a rough time and I hope it gets better.

If you register with a GP surgery where you live they'll refer you to secondary care in that area.. you shouldn't really be accessing services on the basis you live somewhere you now don't as those services are only commissioned/funded for the people who live in that area.. This will be why you've been refused access for iron infusion and probably explains why the Gynae secretary isn't too happy. The NHS may not be perfect but try working with the system and you will get a better outcome.

I was referred by my pacemaker team for an x ray and new medication. “ Oh viques, we’ll book it at your local (same trust) hospital, save you a journey”. Yeah, right.

They did, and it was fine, appointment booked, pharmacy informed . All sorted. But why should I feel amazed that something so simple actually worked. Says a lot about how expectations have lowered. It should all be so much simpler now everything is online, no letters getting lost or not delivered, but sadly, so often even the simplest things go wrong.

A friend was due to be discharged after a stroke, transport booked, everything arranged. Then on the morning it dawned to someone on the ward that although she had initially been given blood thinning injections because of swallowing problems they had not arranged to change her to tablets, and the only person who could prescribe (really?) wasn’t due in for two days. So two more nights in hospital, frustrating for her, expensive for the trust . Yet with a teeny tiny bit of joined up thinking she could have been on the tablets for a few days to check they were working and the planned discharge could have been completed.

You are not unreasonable. This is awful, and if it was the first time I'd heard a story like this, it would still be awful. But I hear things like this every single day. It's all very well saying be grateful it's free, and we don't want a situation where only the rich get healthcare, but the fact is nobody I know has had decent treatment in the past couple of years, and so many people who were previously anti private care either ideologically, or because they're hard-up, are using private care because they're terrified.

Nothing short of medical misogyny. OP, I’m terribly sorry you are going through this in such vulnerable circumstances as well. You deserve so much better care. In fact, it doesn’t sound like you’ve really received care at all. I’ve had gynae issues. Now fertility issues. My referral was rejected from
NHS consultant (male) as I’d been trying to conceive for 9/10 months instead of the 12 months. Absolutely tedious. I have PCOS. Even my NHS GP (female) was angry. She’s now resubmitted the referral 2 months on the dot later and I’m on a 16 week waiting list! If only they’d accepted it sooner I was hardly off the threshold. It’s like they want us to suffer and give below par service…… bare minimum.

People who want to keep this shambles of an organisation are very likely the people who are paying little in taxes. There was a thread recently where someone was bleating that some people cannot afford a pack of paracetamol.

So they are effectively saying that because someone might not be able to afford 30p the whole of the NHS isn’t up for a massive re organisation.

Its a bloody disgrace and not fit for purpose.

Same with my DH - it's been a massive battle to get them to do the basics of appointments for chemo, etc - sheer incompetence time and time again. No problem in them deciding on treatment plans etc but actually getting it done is a different matter - constantly passed between depts, messages left and never responded to, fouled up appointments, etc. Far too many people involved, no single point of contact, meaning an almost full time job just arranging and re-arranging appointments when on active treatment.

The NHS is on its knees! It’s terrifying to be honest. It needs more money, which becomes much less forgivable once you realise just how much money there is in the South East!

As someone from the north, 80% of the people are richer than I could have even dreamt of. Taxes on wealth rather than earnings need to go up.

I feel for you I really do. I could have wrote this 12 months ago. I spent 17 months on Zolodex (Medical menopause) which was supposed to be for 6 months at most while waiting for an ablation. I have have had 2 hysteroscopies with biopsies due to them losing 1 set of results 🙄 and my care was not adequate. I turned up for consultant apps and surgery dates( with letters as proof) to be told he wasnt in on those days. My body has also rejected 3 coils so I honestly feel you. Its a horrible place to be. Please put a complaint in via your trust using PALS. They will have to do a full investigation into your care ( or lack of) and it really shows your struggling and not messing around anymore. I had to do this to finally get my ablation done. I also had to have this done awake with no LA as the wait for GA was even longer and I was desperate. It isn't something I would do again awake the pain was unbelievable. Please please complain and push for adaquate care because from a Gyny POV care is not acceptable or adequate. Hang in there!

This makes me so cross and I’m so sorry OP. It’s medieval what women are supposed to just tolerate, can you imagine anything on the same sort of scale being offered to a bloke and them being told to pop 2 paracetamol, and then patronised if they said they didn’t actually like the sound of that.

Not the same but I was told by my dentist that I wouldn’t ever be able to have sedation for a filling, a friend of mine was telling me a couple of years later how he was as high as a kite when he had a filling because he’s such a baby he needed to go somewhere that does sedation.

There will be other options if you push, and I know everything is harder work when you’re feeling as you do (my DSIS is going through something sort of similar) but have you got anyone who can attend appointments with you or something so you’re not trying to keep on top of everything yourself?

My husband had a similar, falling between the gaps, type experience. We had moved house but kept our old GP, on their invitation. There never seemed like a good time to shift our care to a GP nearer our new home because of the ongoing care and imagining things might get worse if we did. But it did give us time to research who were the good GPs in our area and after one disastrous episode of care, we couldn't see how it could get much worse so we moved practices. The difference was like that between night and day. But, primary care (GPs) and secondary care (hospitals) seem very disconnected at the moment. Secondary care just seem to be fire fighting the whole time with long waiting lists. It's fine if you are on an urgent pathway like cancer but everything else seems a bit hit and miss. It's frustrating, but you have to keep chasing and advocating for yourself. We have a friend who receives private care through BUPA. I have to say that has not been exactly seamless either. When the consultant's secretary goes on holiday there is no one to cover because this is not the NHS with more staff and people to take over. Every bit of care has had to be verified as legitimate for the policy sometimes leading to worrying delays. Tests and scans have been provided many miles away because that's where the equipment is. Private care is not necessarily better. Anyone with a pet who has accessed veterinary care through their pet insurance can testify to how well that sometimes works out.

even for cancer, it’s can still very much a luck of the draw thing and postcode related.
my experience with the NHS and cancer was awful.