NHS is absolutely appalling and I’m paying for this

[Dumbleyellowdore]

I know it’s been done to death but I need a rant.

My DS is 12 and every time he gets even a slight cold or cough he gets a hacking cough which lasts weeks and keeps him awake all night. It is so bad he coughs in his sleep. He literally coughs 24/7 and is exhausted.

This has been going on for 18 months. He caught a cold off his sister at the beginning of the month and has been coughing ever since. He’s had to take time off school and I’m worried about his attendance.

Over the last 18 months I have done econsult after econsult and only get telephone appointments for him and the doctors say he needs a full asthma assessment. The problem is there are no appointments. We have to books months ahead (only 1 nurse does it) and typically when the appointment comes round he doesn’t have a cough. Last time the nurse said there’s no point coming unless he has the cough. Come back when he has one.

I did an econsult last week saying he has the cough please can we see the asthma nurse so she can do the tests. I had a text back with an appointment. We turned up but it was with a paramedic who said he doesn’t do asthma tests and to book with the asthma nurse! What a waste of time.

I rang the doctors and explained what had happened. Said DS has the cough and can he please see the asthma nurse. Was told next appointment in February.

What sort of broken system is this? I am so sick of being forced to pay into this system every month from my pay and I can’t even get my son the appointment he needs. It’s disgusting.

I just don’t know what to do any more. I work with doctors and they have said it sounds like DS needs an inhaler which needs to be prescribed. They have told me a GP can prescribe this and it doesn’t have to be an asthma nurse. Unfortunately the doctors I work with are not GPS so they can’t help.

After another night of none of us getting any sleep due to the constant coughing I just don’t know what to do.

We’re in London too and we had swift turnaround.

Your GP system sounds very odd in comparison

I hope you get it sorted soon

I'm sorry you're going through this and totally understand the need to vent. Two of my children have asthma and it can be a scary condition to manage. My surgery at the moment is only accepting emergencies and wouldn't see my son who was having problems with his asthma a few weeks ago. They referred him to the walk in service but they wanted him to make an appointment, problem was by this time he had deteriorated. In the end we had to get to A&E and he was treated for asthma and an infection; he was pretty poorly. I'm sure his condition would not have worsened if we had got prompt treatment and in that regard we felt disappointed though I can't fault the medics who treated him in hospital. In my experience, you will need to push for an asthma check up; they should know how vital it is to get this managed and with winter upon us this is important. The Asthma charity may also be able to advise you further. All the best and I hope your son soon feels better.

Actually given I now see you’re in London you could easily see a GP face to face privately today. For example doctap.co.uk comes up high on a Google search (haven’t used them myself) is showing appointments at 8 clinics across central London today and tomorrow for £64. You could just book and go, they have peak flow monitors there. But I would still get one for home monitoring.

It is so patchy everywhere. I am so lucky with the recent treatment myself and my family have had, yes some things could be better and they have missed things.

What you are going through is awful though. My ds had a viral wheeze many years ago only diagnosed in A&E as GP after several visits had labelled me as an over anxious mother. my ds was really unwell when we attended A&E, he was given a reliever inhaler (salbutamol) and it really did help, luckily he needs it much less now he is older. My ds got allergy testing on the NHS which highlighted many allergies including hay fever.
If I were you, I would book a private GP even just to get the preventer inhaler. I know you shouldn't have to but sometimes our hand is forced

I have had to pay out for various health investigations/treatments recently and I don't have loads of money.so, have to do payment plans but what can you do?

I am a ward NHS nurse and I see the mess everyday and it breaks my heart.
Best of luck with your ds keep advocating.

You can even get a private consultation cheaper than £60 odd if you are prepared to wait a few days, they are as cheap as £25 a few days ahead, and you have to pay for the prescription medication as well, so that might be a tenner for an inhaler.

I'd do that, I would not keep fighting the broken system, it ends up breaking you and just rumbles on itself, in an ideal world you would get properly seen, assessed and get tailored treatment, but that's not happening, so I'd go with an online consult.

I think the OP is moaning that money is already dedicated out of her taxes for the NHS, so that money is allocated. If we went to a social insurance system or pay system, then you would reallocate some of that money, although probably more. That's why I pay privately quite often now, as I see it as extra on top of the NHS tax allocation already taken from my wages which simply doesn't seem to provide anything like a functional service (or rather, bits of it function really well and bits don't and cause massive stress, delays, time off work).

My sons in London have had consistently better NHS treatment (under the Tory government) than my relatives in Wales under the Labour Welsh government. The latter cant even seem to get basic things right like daily medications.

Try writing a letter stating everything here to the Practise Manager and asking for a way forward - if that gets you no-where try another GP practise.

In meantime buying a peak flow meter looking up how to use and look on amazon for Asthma Diary to keep log of triggers and peak flow.

This is where opinions will differ though.

The attitude of 'it's the NHS so we have to be eternally grateful and worship it even though it's so unbelievably bad it's killing people' stinks to me. It needs scrapping and starting again, and yes of course we'll have to pay for it, which is fine as long as we're not contributing through tax and NI on top of whatever private insurance we end up paying.

Things like NHS weight loss surgeries, gender reassignment and IVF need to all be privately funded instead and we need to lose this obsession with keeping our elderly alive with zero quality of life. Then there might be more available funds to facilitate GP appointments and kids being able to breathe!

This is outrageous. Asthma is something that needs sorting out. It’s a quality of life issue - and without treatment can be deadly.

raise a complaint

I am so sorry to hear this.
Just to say the NHS is not broken, my family can all get seen on the same day by a GP or nurse if needed. But London does not have enough GPs or nurses for its population.
Hopefully asthma treatment will work. But if it does not consider bronchiecstasis.

Nothing to do with location/wealth/systematic inequalities or anything.

no - London just better managed than Wales

I didn’t have an active cough when I had a spirometery test which diagnosed I have asthma.
I would be questioning why your ds needs to be actively coughing to be assessed.

I would be questioning why your ds needs to be actively coughing to be assessed.

This.

Ds and I both got diagnosed when we turned up with attacks happening after years of being fobbed off - DD1 went with DH and they tested - she only coughed during exercise so again no active cough.

Why do you say immigrants don't pay in?
The 1in 5 of nhs workforce is an immigrant. Every single one of those pays tax and NI so contributes to the NHS.
Also did you know that the ethnic group that claims the most support from government is white ! 53% of white families claim some sort of state support. Greater than other ethnicities.
You are just plain wrong

Same dd only coughed after exercise which was at school not at the GP

Still assessed and given an inhaler

If this was my child I'd buy the inhalers from an online pharmacy, or stock up abroad where they're available OTC for less than £2 each. I'd never advise someone else to self medicate their child of course, but in your position I'd have given up on the doctors at this point.

It's true, he can get a spacer and blue pump from the gp to help ease the cough and wheeziness. Then the doctor can do a referral to the hospital/asthma nurse for a review.

Can't you book a normal gp appointment on the day? If you can do this, explain face 2 face what the issue is, and the gp can then prescribe you the pump and spacer

Can you get a peak flow meter and record his readings twice per day for 2 weeks, if he has asthma he will have variable readings with no cough as well.
I am an asthma nurse and this system seems mad- I don’t need to wait for a child to have a cough to decide if he is asthmatic or not- the cough could just be a cold.
his full clinical history, park flow diary and potentially a FeNo test will be were I would start if this was me then a trial of steroid inhaler treatment if needed will give us a definitive answer

So have you been prescribed inhalers at all?

We also use a nebuliser to ease coughs too, we bought it off Amazon and the liquid to go into it.

Two of mine had the blue pump before we even saw a asthmas doctor/nurse. When we eventually got an appointment to see them, we were given a brown preventer pump. Ask the doctor about it.

If he is bad take him to the hospital and the doctors should be able to give him the blue pump and spacer there - we had to do this before because the gp wouldn't send off the referral for my daughter to see the asthma clinic and she kept getting coughs that go to her chest. The preventer was life changing, no more coughing fits overnight.

That’s odd, because I’m in Wales. I can always get an appointment, saw a proper menopause specialist, got treatment for an arthritic knee within a couple of weeks at the height of the pandemic etc.
My DD phoned at 8 yesterday and was in the surgery seeing the GP at 8.30.

Goodness me, all the posts criticising OP for saying she pays for the NHS. Well she does, we all do. And we are all entitled to a decent NHS, just like we are all entitled to decent public services. We all pay taxes to have decent, and functioning public services after all. OP is right to be angry that we pay taxes and yet still have services that are not fit for purpose.

I don't think there can be many who would argue the NHS is fit for purpose any more. My son is on a TWO YEAR NHS waiting list for a condition that really hampers him and will increasing limit his life over those two years. And what's more this is a condition that gets more entrenched the longer it goes on. Meaning even when he does get to the stage of being properly assessed and a treatment plan being made, it may very well be too late.

OK I am going to get a peak flow meter, great advice, we have a pharmacy near us so will pop there after work. I feel I have a plan now. Thankyou.

No he has never been offered an inhaler although I have asked numerous times. Just keep being told he needs full asthma assessment first. They seem reluctant to give one out almost as if I’m asking for a prescription for heroin well that’s how it feels.

I'm in Wales too. Read my post above.