AIBU to be appalled by delayed NHS care for possible shoulder fracture

This!
I’d have been in A&E the day you fell on the stairs I wouldn’t have left this and been in this much pain.

It will be up to 2 weeks IF nothing is seen. At the hospital I work at the images are looked at pretty much immediately and flagged up if there is anything unusual.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I just don’t understand why you didn’t go to A&E or at least minor injuries. You had a fall and got injured and then it got worse. A GP isn’t trained in this, they will just refer you and as you’ve found out it’s a slow system. Minor injuries/A&E would have been quick, you’d have had a scan on the same day as you went to get seen and usually don’t go home until a doctor has reviewed the Xray.

I think you’re being unreasonable to be so appalled. You have drip fed that you fell down the stairs - this wasn’t in your original post. Once your shoulder started to hurt, you should have presented at A and E and would have received a scan and treatment plan a lot quicker. Unfortunately I think this is on you. Hope you do feel better soon.

You are not being unreasonable. I had a similar experience after a major knee injury. I went via A&E after my accident but there were weeks and weeks of waiting between everything, moving from x ray to MRI to fracture clinic for MRI results (which the doctor said he was struggling to interpret because he wasn’t that good at knees…) to a referral to the acute knee clinic. I gave up and went privately and had already seen a knee surgeon privately twice and had multiple sessions of private physio before my acute knee clinic and physio referrals even came through on the NHS (appointments scheduled for over 2 months after my accident). It’s not good and I’m sorry for anyone who experiences this when they’re in pain and anxious. I couldn’t walk and had to use a wheelchair, for context on the injury.

If it helps, when I fractured my shoulder (came off a horse), the pain was immediate and excruciating. I couldn't move my arm at all barely, there was not a hope in hell it was lifting itself anywhere. I spent weeks with it in a sling for support and my physio started with tiny circles and even that was difficult.
I think I was at around week 6 before it could support itself without a sling.

It could be ligament/tendon damage from the fall or a torn rotator cuff. Also an acute fall/impact can bring on a frozen shoulder which would also explain symptoms. I might be wrong but I thought you needed an ultrasound to check for a torn rotator cuff. So if they rule out a fracture I’d then be wanting an ultrasound to make sure they are treating the right problem.

Maybe this will teach you not to drip feed.

The NHS is nit responsible for your failure to seek the correct treatment.

You chose not to go to an urgent care facility and use your GP therefore they are treating it as non-urgent.

Have some accountability for your own decision making.

You go to a&e for a suspected fracture so they can x ray it!

That doesn't sound like a break.

Hugely over the frequency of NHS-bashing posts now on MN, when often they are written by people with only half the facts / understanding of why decisions have / haven’t been taken. It’s called clinical reasoning - and it follows NICE guidelines for a reason.
Yes, we sometimes mess up. But in the vast majority of cases we do Stirling work (which seldom gets posts started about 🤔).

That said - I do hope you make a good recovery soon OP; the pain sounds lousy. I’m in the torn RC camp, with secondary frozen shoulder…

Erm I don’t understand why you didn’t go to A&E as in accident and emergency? You would have got an X-ray there and appropriate pain relief. A&E! You’ve had some sort of trauma to lead to this pain! Soft tissue injury can be equally as painful but no diagnosis can be made without an X-ray

IME A&E isn’t any better my husband has been waiting 4 months for an MRI and results of said MRI we know he’s torn his ACL and is in daily pain. All these people saying you “took the wrong route” aren’t acknowledging the absolute state that the NHS is in. This is an NHS issue not the OP’s fault for seeing the wrong HCP. The longer people keep apologising for the NHS or the worse it’s getting.

Go private

I hurt my shoulder once omg the pain at night was excruciating so so painful ,, I was taking strong painkillers (which caused my eyesight trouble) they offered me physio which did nothing , eventually I got an appt , (after crying at the drs ) but by that time the pain had started to subside , I mean it was months and months later , lovely dr who sent me straight away for an x-ray . Got the results straight away and he said it had fused together , so that was that !

But that's an accident that has resulted in extreme pain. It is what we have A&E for.

I went to A&E 48 hours after a car crash as at the time I felt OK ish then 2 days later I could hardly move and my neck was extremely painful.

Do you not have a minor injuries until (MIU) near you? Ours are brilliant for xrays and stitches and other non emergency stuff. I took DS when he split his head open when he was 3 and they were brilliant.

Physio here. Would have expected immediate pain if a fracture so physio likely being cautious and depending on your Trust's pathway, an x-ray maybe required before something like an ultrasound just to rule out a fracture. If RC tear, depending on the severity, age, other comorbidities, you could be waiting several months for surgical repair. I would engage in physio ASAP regardless. As PP has mentioned, you may be at risk for secondary frozen shoulder following a trauma. The NHS is far from perfect but it does get an awful lot of hate for something that is working with very limited resources and budget and huge demand.

They’re just the same people that always put the boot in whatever the OP says. If she had posted saying she’d gone to A&E for it they’d be self-righteous / mock horrified / patronising / faux-naïve questioning her about that instead. ‘Why didn’t she call 111/ I had my arm cut off and I waited for my GP appointment while looking after my whole family and doing my job blah blah blah’

It’s the same people on every thread whatever the OP says.

I fell and tore my shoulder..it was what I fell on when I shattered a bone in my leg..it WAS hugely painful OP couldn't lift it away from my body ...the leg was a surgical priority...anyhow when they xrayed they didnt find a fracture in my shoulder, despite my pain, just noted calcium deposits in the tendons. The pain lifted in time...has the physio given you exercises to do to prevent muscle atrophy?

A&E will ask what happened and be unimpressed with a very old injury that is in a treatment pathway.

Radiographer here. Not going to comment on the pathway you followed to getting the xray but what I will say is if the radiographer saw a fracture, they would not have sent you home and would have sent you to A&E. Also if the physio genuinely thought you might have a fracture and wanted it ruling out they would have mentioned that on the xray request, the fact you got sent home and told to wait up to 2 weeks for the results suggests they didn't. At my trust any patient that has a request stating potential fracture has their images looked at by a reporter/radiologist immediately and you would be told straight away if there was a fracture. Same at our local minor injuries walk in centre. I would assume this is common practice everywhere, not just where I work.