How many people have been failed by the NHS during lockdown?

[Polnm]

My DH has cancer.

His appointment in April was by phone
His appointment in August was postponed until October

How is this acceptable? Hospitals are empty whilst patients can’t access care.

GP appointments by zoom with a 2 week wait for a basic blood pressure check in person or to take bloods

Why isn’t there more publicity and outrage about this?

We can’t be the only family going through this surely?

I am so sorry for all your losses.

On the other side I have not been failed at all. I have to attend regular appointments for blood transfusions, monitoring and injections.
My daughter has to attend for regular monitoring of her seizure disorder.
All our appointments have been carried out face time face, (appointments made over the phone, only one patient in at a time etc) in conditions that I felt very safe in. All treatment was administered on schedule. And my gp even called to check we were ok once or twice.

I have to say we've been fine - so whether it's different areas

My dad has been diagnosed with cancer during this - during a CT scan to check a lung op had worked from Feb (I think the scan may have been delayed - but not sure it may not have been) - he's not having treatment, but nothing to do with covid but his own health, he's got follow up after another scan in 2 weeks

A friend had her entire course of radiotherapy during lockdown (was diagnosed just before - I think she started it in the first week after lockdown)

Another's friends daughter had her annual followup in the children's hospital in person

I've had my b12 injections

DS had an infection and the phone consultation with the GP worked well - and probably resulted in him getting treatment faster than he usually would have

Things are not good here. No where near as bad as some experiences on here. So sorry for those who lost love ones or have terminal cancer/family with terminal cancer. Several appointments cancelled indefinitely. My GP sent me for an urgent scan, then radiology sent me a letter and say it's not urgent so cancelled it.

I used me be a nurse, so have spoken to nurses and they said while some areas are busy, some are extremely quiet. No dental services for most of the year now, we have had several appointments cancelled and surgery postponed.

A colleague recently passed away, their aggressive cancer originally being told was 'probably covid'

Minor inconveniences for us, cancelled appointments, routine monitoring so no real negative consequences. We did get a MRI scan for DS very early on, it was a cancellation, mid morning phone call for an appointment the next day at 8am. I took it purely on the basis that there was no saying how long we would have to wait otherwise.

I am however a HCP though don't work in the NHS, community services have been streamlined (reduced to as little as possible) and staff re-deployed into other teams. The community falls service for example stopped - the potential long term cost for these people not being seen is huge.

I work as a HCA in a gp practice and the only things that stopped were spirometey tests and ear syringing.

Another example of postcode lottery. Our GP surgery stopped doing ear syringing years ago and now tell patients to make their own arrangements privately. It's a complete farce.

I work in London - everything back to normal and we only postponed routine surgery for a few weeks.

My DD had a face to face consult with a GP within a week of phoning, x-ray done a couple of weeks later and now has a scan booked at the hospital. She has been seen quicker than she would have pre-covid.
On the other hand I work in an NHS outpatient clinic which is going to take ages to clear the backlog due to limited numbers being allowed in to reduce footfall and keep social distancing. I am seeing patients face to face, and happy to see them even if they can't wear a mask - they need to be seen.But we are just not allowed to see the numbers we did before, and it wouldn't be possible as I have to clean everything and change PPE between patients. Hoping things change sooner rather than later.

The failure is not by the NHS, the failure is by Mr Johnson and to an extent by Mr Hancock.

Elective surgery and consultations would not have needed to have been stopped for as long a period as they were, had the government acted on SAGEs advise promptly on March 16th.

@Pomegranatepompom

I work in London - everything back to normal and we only postponed routine surgery for a few weeks.

I'm being treated at three London hospitals, over two separate trusts, none of my appointments are back to normal, all still telephone appointments if they're even happening at all.

I'm in Glasgow and have no complaints re acute stuff for me and DC. Nothing chronic to deal with which I assume has been more problematic, but cannot fault our treatment (all recent). Much better than our pre Covid experiences in England.

@Pomegranatepompom

I work in London - everything back to normal and we only postponed routine surgery for a few weeks.

What kind of surgery? I have a family member who has had surgery cancelled with no contact (not cancer)

We are offering telephone clinic to this who don’t wish to travel, tbh I think we will change our way of working to the benefit of patients. Ie sending out prescriptions, zoom reviews, merging different speciality appointments. I appreciate this don’t work for all illnesses. Patients have so far been happy. We continue to review patients face to face and admit as per normal. Outpatients is limited due to restricting numbers.
Sorry for anyone who is not receiving acceptable care. I find it truly shocking.
DS has a cardiac appointment rescheduled, we had a telephone consult, of course it’s much better for people to attend at the moment if not detrimental to outcome.

Cardiac/cancer care/ transplants - all continues as normal. Dept who weren’t busy were redeployed to covid wards with trust or in another.

I'm currently awaiting an "urgent" referral to a respiratory consultant. I say "urgent" it was marked urgent at the beginning of February and I'm still waiting. Consultant has now marked me more urgent but they are booked solid with post Covid patients. Have been having respiratory physio via WhatsApp which was very difficult - it's almost impossible to accurately describe what muscles you are using to the physio on the other end of the phone - and it was only when I decided to measure my own saturations and found them dropping to 83% on exercise that physio was called to a halt and the consultant contacted. I'm fortunate - I used to be a registered nurse I know what I'm doing and know what to look for. I'm still struggling to get appropriate care. How many others have just been forgotten about? There seems to be no system for keeping track of patients that have had treatment delayed during this time

Must be a regional thing. I had breast pain and visited GP who said as I didn’t actually have a lump that it was unlikely I would be offered a mammogram due to current situation, but she referred me to the breast clinic anyway, and I actually received an appointment through the post that same week to attend for a mammogram the following week. I appreciate I appear to have been lucky though.

My child was failed badly. My mother received the most excellent care you could imagine. It’s very much luck of the draw :(

The system is crap.

Despite having huge sums of money thrown at it (in a panic) things are not moving forwards.

Telephone appointments are in many cases totally unsatisfactory.

@Pomegranatepompom

I work in London - everything back to normal and we only postponed routine surgery for a few weeks.

That’s absolute bollocks - I’m in London and care at three different trusts for me, dd and dd is nowhere near back to normal

This is what I am most angry about. Nobody else matters, you bloody only matter if you have Covid.
For sounding horrible why do they matter more than anyone else.

I want to see stats for everything else alongside Covid. People are so brainwashed for Covid, they can't see the bigger picture anymore.

Services all back where I work, obv can't speak for all London trusts.

My mum's doctors are using a telephone appointment system which she loves as she loves the phone but there are problems with it. When you book a medication review they do not even make an effort to tell you what time they will be phoning which can be a pain if you miss the phone due to needing the looh, eating lunch etc as if you miss the call you have to go through the whole process of phoning back to get a telephone appointment. Then the process of sitting by the phone all day starts again. I can honestly see some people going without medication etc as people do miss calls and it is far harder to diagnose over the phone so i bet that they are missing lots of things. Yes i am not a massive fan of the phone but if my mum can talk to her asthma nurse while eating her lunch she is a far better person than i am as i couldn't eat and talk on the phone at the same time

Yes, these open ended telephone appointments are ridiculous if you work and can't have your phone with you. I can't book a whole day off work every time I need a GP appointment.

During lockdown I had a hospital appointment (via telephone) that didn't happen. E mailed the secretary and got no apology just another appointment for the following week. The call that time was two.hours late. I wasn't working then so it wasn't a huge problem but what if I had been working? Having a chronic illness that needs regular hospital attendance makes it so very stressful to try to keep a job going. The state doesn't want to give benefits to disabled and chronically sick people but doesn't put proper job protection in place for us either when we are having to de with a system as broken as the NHS

The state doesn't want to give benefits to disabled and chronically sick people but doesn't put proper job protection in place for us either when we are having to de with a system as broken as the NHS.

Not only that but the lack of any support on the NHS for adults with autism and mental health problems means the benefits system decides "oh, you aren't that affected by your condition because you aren't under the care of a specialist." 😡😡😡😡 Yes because in some areas there is none and in others the waiting list is several years.

And benefits like PIP are focused on very narrow parameters. Illness and disability can affect a person in a multitude of ways - I don't consider being able to walk 200m with a walking aid or being able to hear up soup or pasta the bench mark for not disabled.