Let's turn the ( usual) NHS negativity around with your positive experiences

[Tiredallthetimeneedsleep]

Fed up with the latest negative NHS 'headline' so I thought I'd start a thread to share my positive experiences.

Had MRI booked within 2 weeks of seeing DR. Was seen on time and the staff were brilliant.

What are YOUR NHS positive stories?

Most of my experiences are poor tbh.

However I did have a wonderful GP who would willingly refer me about ten years ago. I still miss her.

My family member's heart operation and aftercare were very good in themselves. The wait for the heart op not so much.

Oh the last Doc that did my coil change was brilliant

I had bleeding in early pregnancy last week, and I was referred to EPU within a day, and the staff couldn't have been nicer given I've had previous miscarriages. All fine for now luckily.

As a family we have always been covered by private insurance.

DH, son, and I have all however been in the situation where we needed urgent treatment, and couldn’t fault NHS.

DH now has a life limiting condition, and has had 3 ambulances out to him via 111 in last 6 months. The longest wait we had was 15 mins. The last one was a couple of weeks ago, I went with him,and he was put on a trolley in the corridor whilst paramedic went and filled forms in. He was seen within 20 mins and processed through. There were staff constantly going up and down the corridor.

We can always get a doctors appointment on the day, if you ring before 11am.

My experience is that the NHS can be both wonderful and dreadful in roughly equal measures.

This is mine as well.

Really good MW care with first pg - last one so bad it put me and baby at unnecessary risk - and staff were caught lying in writing twice accepted by their management.

Really good with medical emergency with DC in covid - pretty good with DH seriously injured on way into work. Nearly killed FIL and Dad with waits and poor care and have left them with preventable long term problems and daily make Dmum life as Dad carer much harder with lack of communication and lacks in basic care.

I had a really good experience with my recent ELCS (especially compared to my carcrash EMCS three years ago).

Recovery has been miraculously easy. I got put into a side room after the birth, even though I said I didn't think I needed one - there was even a reclining chair for my dh to stay overnight. Barely-there scar (and they removed my previous huge keloid one). The midwives took really good care of me on the postnatal ward.

10/10 I would recommend an ELCS at my local hospital. Wouldn't give birth any other way (not that I'm having any more!)

My GP surgery is next level. Can normally always be seen (or speak to someone as I often prefer) same day. If they can't they'll arrange for next morning but often call back during the day when they have a gap. Has it's own pharmacy - if I order a prescription it's sorted within an hour or two. Was able to organise HRT with just one phone call, had it in my hand two hours later.

Recently had to call 999 for a family member. Two ambulances were on the scene within five minutes.

I wouldn't have survived any of my births without the NHS.
My mums breast cancer was picked up in her routine mammogram and she was treated for it promptly.
This was all over 10 years ago though. I've had nothing but bad experiences with them in the last 6 years. And it makes me equally sad, mad and scared. It used to be the pride of Britain. Now we've got more chance of suffering and dying, than being looked after promptly or properly. We should be shouting about that!!

I am so pissed off with the NHS at the minute. However, they saved my life in 2006 when I was on the brink of a certain death. So I will always be thankful for those who kept me here for my children to have their mum.

The people who work at the front line are mostly amazing, I personslly think it's the "executive staff" etc and the in last ( at least ) 8 years, the politicians have drained and bled the resources ( millions wasted on PPE which was not fit for purpose) etc. FWIW I am definitely not a journo and have been on MN for years. This was SUPPOSED to be a positive thread, but I guess you can't please everyone)

The Dr who took me seriously when I brought my child to A&E with a 5 day long fever and periods of vacant staring. She listened to me and took my instincts seriously enough to go against her own initial judgement of ‘child is running around playing and can’t be seriously ill’ and ordered tests to ‘rule out anything serious’.

I’m very grateful to her. Because my child had a CRP of 217. Initially treated for sepsis, then diagnosed with Kawasaki’s (which has only a 10 day treatment window - by the time we got an accurate diagnosis and treatment we were on day 9).

I am grateful to this Dr because she could easily have done what the GP, 111 service, out of hours doctor and the other hospital I had visited in the previous 3 days had done and fobbed me off with ‘it’s probably just a virus’ and an eye roll 🫠

I am similarly grateful to the anaesthetist who diagnosed my heart condition during labour and referred me for surgery. I am not grateful to the countless GP’s, nurses and midwives who spent 20 years telling me that my palpitations and blood pressure issues were probably just anxiety or white coat syndrome.

I am grateful for the rheumatologist who, exhausting all other tests, ran a test or coeliacs on my daughter, just on the off chance that this was causing her joint pain, headaches, dizziness, constipation and lack of energy. I’m glad someone finally took her symptoms seriously, instead of telling us it was growing pains as our GP did for 2 entire years! I’m grateful to the fantastic dietician we saw after diagnosis who gave us the best, clearest, most caring info and advice I have ever received from a clinician in my life.

I am not grateful for GPs . GPs and their ridiculous biased, unevidence based, watch and wait approach to women and children’s health can just get to fuck. They know nothing and they just hold people back from accessing the care they need.

I get amazing expert care for my rare condition. The doctors are hugely knowledgeable.

People in the US with my condition often end up destitute or bankrupt or unable to afford the right care.

my gp’s utterly brilliant! call before 8am you’re guaranteed a same day appointment, and if after that time you get one the next day! they’ll sort everything very quickly, you’ll be in with a problem and it’ll be on the way to being sorted in 2 hours max

I also really appreciated the kind and wise advice from a GP when I was heading towards burnout this year. No judgement. Lots of sensible advice, and she proactively scheduled an appointment to check in on me

DS was recently taken ill at night. 111 sent an ambulance. The paramedics were brilliant and we had a negligible wait at A and E too. The children's ward were also great. We have a follow up booked for a few weeks time. I can't complain at all.

Thanks for an attempt at a positive NHS Thread OP. I have worked in emergency medicine for 10 years now, and really appreciate the sentiment. Nobody is denying that the system is broken and care is often less that adequate, but there are plenty of almost daily posts about that to be honest.

I love working in A&E, I like being able to be there for patients on potentially a really shit day for them and hopefully making a small difference to that experience. My colleagues are much the same, slogging through long long wait times trying to prioritise the sickest / most urgent and hoping we don't miss something while battling through unmanageable workloads. FYI no NHS worker has ever wanted hero worship or to be called an angel. If we weren't paid we wouldn't turn up.

If anyone has a really great experience consider writing a letter to say thanks. I have kept all of mine, I often look through them when I'm thinking of chucking the towel in on the whole unsustainable mess.

Cervical smear! Same day appointment! Nurse was lovely (we had some issues) and made me feel 100% relaxed. Honestly I’d have it done weekly if she was doing it - was genuinely a nice experience (as weird as that sounds)

Oh, I forgot one - I am grateful to the paramedic who advised my partner to get an Uber rather than call the ambulance back, if his condition deteriorated. She was honest about the state of the ambulance service at that time, acknowledging that an Uber would be both quicker and safer. It saved us another 8-9 hour ambulance wait when he became septic.

Some things are good.
When i needed a lot of blood tests i could pop down to the hospital and just wait - actually more convenient than booking for local gp.
My eldest is nhs ivf. Though possibly that is helped by them also taking private patients
Quick referal by gp for asd assessment (the queue is years long though)

Some of the nhs issues are more general
we have to go to gp even for known issues eg thyroid even in pregnancy not referred to specialist
Care for kids etc needs to be 24 7
Political avoidance of use of antibiotics (caused dc1 a new heart murmur and me and her ptsd
Perhaps the uselessness of general population impacts so eg i knew my dc when get ear pain it was going to burst -- but they followed general procedures of waiting etc.

Why do nhs not test for bacteria with throat swabs ??

Cost cutting leaves some with inappropriate treatment.
I first raised adhd as an issue at 5yo.
Go referred at my request at 10 and now dd is nearly 12

Not enough accountablity

Had 2 miscarriages and then a pregnancy conceived via IVF. At 10 weeks I fell down the stairs and had a small bleed a few days later. Was absolutely petrified that I’d loose the pregnancy. EPU got me in virtually straight away for an US scan which confirmed everything was ok. Can’t tell you how relieved I was.
DS2 had mild abdo pain but otherwise well. I’m a HCP and noticed he had rebound tenderness which could mean appendicitis. GP was excellent, sent us straight to paeds. They were sceptical it was his appendix but an US confirmed it. The next day he had it removed and we were discharged the following afternoon.
My experience with a cardiologist hasn’t been good which I attribute to my age (50s), female sex and being perimenopausal at the time (written off as anxious and stressed out).

I've been in hospitals a lot in the last few months with an elderly parent. In general I am very impressed by most of the staff we meet. They seem to try their best within the constraints of the system. There are exceptions: lazy staff on some shifts, but most are not like this.

So no-one is allowed to be positive? OK then. Funnily enough you're not forced to read or reply to this thread.

Visited walk in after DH fell onto his wrist. Seen in 20 minutes, XRay, cast, referral to local fracture clinic within an hour.

You mean God forbid anyone share positive stories because you don't like it.

Run along to the 955th "NHS is shit and so are all the staff" thread then, you'll feel right at home🙄

I've only been waiting 16 months for the follow up appointment after my heart surgery so that's great news

I spent 3 nights on a geriatric ward a few months ago. It was a pleasant experience listening to nurses and healthcare assistants explaining that the elderly lady next to me was 'screaming for attention' whilst completely ignoring her.
Also the fact that I had no dinner for those three days because it wasn't sent for me (once) wasn't what I ordered (once) was stone cold (once).
Also the 9 hour wait for an ambulance transfer in the waiting room with zero pain relief was fantastic.
Five stars.

Obviously one of the lucky ones because I have too many positive experiences to list with a handful of negatives amongst them.

From the top of my head - GP practice exceeds my expectations every time where my children are concerned. Trust parents instinct and see them when requested, quick responses to e-consults and to medication requests. Had some negative experiences for my care at times but the majority really do care and have gone above and beyond - after trying to conceive for a long time, I finally did and had a miscarriage. The GP took so much time and effort into caring for me, checking up on my regularly and supporting me when I got pregnant again.

Toddler DC had a nasty fall during lockdown and had to go A&E - absolutely fantastic in every way. Despite rule of one person per child, they saw how frazzled I was and allowed DH in, consultant came as quickly as possible to check them and really took care of them.

I have a parent with a long term health issue and while there were a lot of mistakes initially in diagnosis, the hospital team that care for them cannot be faulted.

The mistakes tend to happen with overworked and understaffed departments. Having worked for the NHS for a long time, lots of change is certainly required but the ones at fault are usually not front line staff