@Oliversmumsarmy I am not surprised at your story at all.
I think you may have been one of those who posted on my medical misogyny (which is a worldwide issue not just a British one) thread last year on which there were a ridiculous number of examples where not examining/referring patients properly, treating symptoms rather than making a genuine effort to identify the cause of symptoms and dismissing patients as "neurotic" and "hysterical" even to the point of passing them to already overstretched mh services was seemingly standard practice across the country.
Such practices not only leave patients suffering (in some examples described on the thread the lack of care was even fatal!) but also long term cost FAR more than if a little extra cost had been approved in the first place.
It's short sighted, inefficient and dangerous!
It's at least partly/sometimes due to policies which discourage appropriate referrals or investigations being made, policies which financially incentivise/disincentivise primary hcps from acting in the best interests of the patient rather than in what is cheapest in the short term.
The pushing of LARC is one very clear example of this. So many women are being pushed into having mirena coil or implant NOT because it's what's best for them but because there is a financial incentive for hcps to do so and a financial disincentive to remove them if the patient experiences difficulties with them especially soon after their put in.
There's been some truly shocking stories about this on mn and in the media generally (but unfortunately not as yet making real headlines cos it only of course happens to women and women don't matter!)
And making complaints is as you say incredibly difficult.
Patients are stonewalled, prevented from accessing notes, persuaded to accept pointless non apologies and placatory acts that don't really remedy the problem.
In addition in some areas (inc the one I currently live in) if you complain about a gp or gp surgery good luck getting another gp until you reach the point where the relevant authority steps in and assigns you one against their wishes. Patients who complain are effectively "black balled" albeit unofficially "current list full" "you're not strictly within our catchment area" etc or setting impossible hoops for patients to jump through to be accepted as a patient.
IMO gps should never have been allowed to effectively remain outside the nhs legally/financially. They are to all intents and purposes private contractors to the nhs. So the nhs struggles to police/manage them.
But of course it's not just gps, I've had numerous hospital Drs dismiss my endo symptoms even in a&e and basically treat me as someone making a fuss about nothing - almost all of them men.
Posters may be interested in as well as googling "medical misogyny" also googling "the gender pain gap"
Several posters on my thread noted that they had male relatives present with exactly the same pain symptoms sometimes even to the same dr even within days of their visit and the male patients received far more sympathetic responses and were prescribed strong painkillers etc
Women are expected to tolerate more frequent and greater levels of pain than men are.
Absolutely no good reason for this.