To think that NHS services shouldn't use me as a go between

[ladyflower23]

DD who is 4 needs to have a blood test. I had to phone our local children's hospital to arrange this myself. The person on the phone told me that my GP should have prescribed a numbing cream for her and to go back and ask for a prescription. So I did this and he has refused saying that it is part of the service that the hospital should provide and he can't have all parents coming to him asking him to prescribe this. I explained that she needs to have the cream put on an hour before the appointment and I assume that is why they have referred me back to him, so that I can do the cream at home before we come in. He said I would need to phone the hospital back, tell them what he had said and ask if I can come in an hour earlier for them to put the cream on. AIBU that there should be some sort of internal system where these kinds of issues could be raised rather than asking parents of patients to go back and forth saying he said she said? I think I'm going to try my luck at a pharmacy and see if I can get some off prescription...

I can't believe some if the responses on here. Of course it is ridiculous that the OP should have to call back and forth between the GP and hospital. If there is an issue with hospitals getting GPs to do things that they shouldn't then that should be resolved. It shouldn't become the patient's problem!

You can cover the cream, once applied with cling film. It doesn’t have to be special dressings!

I have a disabled DD and have had years of acting as a go between several hospitals; or a hospital and the GP; or education and social services; or social services and the CCG; or two CCGs - all arguing about who was going to do what for DD! It doesn’t save any money, due to the knock on effects of the stress on the family, all of which ends up costing more money!

Still, the blood test department once told DD (aged 16), she didn’t need emla cream - she was sick and fainted!

We tried the cling film thing - it was a bloody disaster! If you can get away without them great, we definitely couldn’t!

It’s a nightmare trying to get joint up thinking at times.

But I agree the spray is much better. Ds has a lot of blood tests and now has it in his hospital passport not to the the cream because it adds to his stress so we go straight to the spray which is much better and much easier (and probably much more expensive!)

When my DD was 8/9 months she needed a blood test and I was told by the local hospital they couldn't do it and in any case I needed to use the numbing cream before her next appointment at the larger hospital. At the next appointment I went prepared, emla and cling film an hour before on both arms and got told off for doing it and to come back another day without using the cream! Was the biggest nightmare. NHS discrepancies in info/advice/procedures varies hugely!!

Yes sometimes things don’t work perfectly in the country’s largest organisation. There is a misunderstanding somewhere. Maybe we should pay properly for some more nurses who actually have the time to try to improve the system of blood tests pain relief.

Maybe you could email the hospital complaints dept to inform them, so they can change it and it doesn’t happen to other people?

It is annoying, but it’s a bit like complaining a bus or train is late. Or the council are slow at responding. You can of course, but it doesn’t improve anything and denigrates what we have, which saves lives.

Yeah. The government should pay for more nurses. Anyone who has to juggle multiple specialists and tests knows what a bloody nightmare it is. Of course people should talk about it, or people who arent currently using the nhs with regularity would have any idea of the issues occurring.

I feel your pain OP, during my last pregnancy I ended up in the middle of an argument between the midwife at my GP and the consultant at the hospital about who should be doing what - neither would talk to the other, both just kept saying to me “no that’s wrong, they shouldn’t have told you that, they should be doing X”.

Patients shouldn’t be playing referee between branches of the NHS.

Seems very strange that the hospital bounced you back to the GP. I work on a paeds ward and the kids we have coming in for bloods we either put the cream on when they arrive or use the cold spray, whatever the parents prefer!

I hear you OP.

I'm awaiting comments from the Chief Exec of my local hospital at the moment as my treatment over the last 12 months has been like a comedy of errors.

A couple of months ago I ended up in A&E in horrific stomach pain. This pain had been going on for 2 months and I was awaiting a colonoscopy but my referral had been lost twice and I kept been told different waiting times. Anyway - I was told in A&E that they couldn't do anything until I had had a camera - told them I knew I needed the camera but getting one was proving problematic for some reason - the booking desk for the scans is a minute walk if that from A&E but I was told I needed to get my GP to phone them to see why it hadn't been booked - so I had to get in my car and drive (in agony) back to my GP and get his secretary to call the desk I had just walked past. She said they have it all the time and it's just ridiculous.

I am under four different departments in the same hospital and it seems impossible to get them to talk to one another. I'm on first name terms with half the secretaries. I have to do all the leg work admin wise myself.

Seems very strange that the hospital bounced you back to the GP. I work on a paeds ward and the kids we have coming in for bloods we either put the cream on when they arrive or use the cold spray, whatever the parents prefer!

We’ve had the same, because DT2 often needs 8am bloods, so we don’t have to come in at 7am and wait around for an hour.

Happens all the time, is majorly frustrating, does all come down to funding and nothing I can do about it as a 'frontline' nhs worker. The drama with different commissioning areas just makes it worse.

The problem with putting services put to tender and getting different NHS trusts to compete means that you can end up with really disjointed services and patients suffer.

sparky I’m confused as to why you think feedback or complaints denigrate the service?
Surely services can be improved by taking notice of feedback?

Yep, and big gaps in services too, when one service was doing something for which they weren’t specifically commissioned.

It can be a nightmare. We had to take DT2 for a test that takes 90 minutes and we ended up there for five hours because they made us come two hours before the nurse dealing with him even came on shift. Or we will turn up for tests, nobody knows we are coming, where we are going, what his needs are, etc. It’s exhausting.

Ds is tubefed. getting his feeds has been a catalogue of errors for the last six months since it was fitted. I have been lied to left right and centre.

So last month I put in a complaint about it to the GP practise and copied in the others involved. Now they have all managed to work together to put a plan in place so I only have to make one phone call a month not 101!

YANBU. There seems to be a complete lack of communication with anyone where the NHS is concerned. My son broke a bone. He was patched up by A&E who said that ortho would be in touch to do a proper cast. They did not and were impossible to get hold of. I went to GP in desperation who said they would sort out an appointment with ortho. Called back a week later to be told that hadn’t spoken to orthopaedics yet! They then told me to go to A&E who proceeded to patch up some more and we were told we’d get a call from orthopaedics, which we eventually did, notifying us that we’d missed the appointment that no one had told us we had! In hind sight it would hand been quicker to go to London and have it done through insurance.

@Sparky888 does it actually save lives? Lots of people die because of such poor management. I think that relative to having a healthcare system which isn’t run incompetently the NHS actually costs lives...

It sounds like you're caught inbetween a departmental financial argument.

I work for an Urgent care centre and we take children's bloods if we have a paediatric nurse working and by appt only. We are not funded for this it is to help take the pressure off doctors and children's hospital. At the time or ringing we specify that we need a blood request form and they need to ask for a prescription for the numbing cream. They can put the cream on the child an hour before if they so wish, but our nurses prefer to do it as they know exactly where it needs to be applied. We do keep spare cream just in case they arrive without any, so would not turn anyone away. I am not sure whether it is different for other regions but we do not seem to have a prob with our doctors, as I am sure it comes out their budget.