To take this further? GP negligence

[Lavenduhhh]

In brief: 10 months ago I took my DC for a GP appt to gain a referral for an ongoing, debilitating issue. Was told wait list 6-12mths. Fine. Called today to see where we are on the list as it's become a more immediate/urgent concern. GP hasn't done referral. Not an admin error, GP forgot.

Am actually devastated. Lodged a full formal complaint with them and also the ICB. Considering MP and press - unsure why, I don't want attention, I want recognition for the fact this is disgusting. My child has actively declined during this last 10 month period. To me, it amounts of negligence.

I'm actually so upset I can't sleep. My child is medically complex and always has been. Advocating for them medically and educationally for over a decade has damn near killed me.

Should I take this further? If so, how? We will almost definitely end up going private for the referral and my DPs might part-fund. It shouldn't come to this. The GP in question is very senior.

You can see referrals and wait times on the NHS app.

I always check this weekly and make sure a referral has been done. If not I chase it up.

The culture of the NHS/healthcare now is to expect complaints and litigation. It is seen as part of the job. Mistakes are made in every profession. A complaint would help them identify a process that may help prevent this happening again and for the GP to reflect on their own practice.

On your part as you have said you should have chased it up more too. We should not be passive in our own responsibilities for our own and our children’s healthcare.

MP won't be able to get pt bumped up list! I would expect GP surgery to liaise with colleagues to whom the referral should have been made and grovel to allow the pt to get on the WL at the point they would have been had the referral been done when it should have been. I work in complaints for NHS. MPs writing to us does not mean people get seen sooner at the expense of others and nor should it.

What's happened to the UK health service? It seems shite. I don't live there but always thought it was like ours. Car crash/ heart attack etc, straight in and staying as long as it takes with no charge. Broken arm, might be a few hours wait but given painkillers and moved to a "layback" chair immediately with a cannula set up for any pain meds.
Gp's are free for under 16's and pensioners and those on benefits ( other pay about 15 -20 pounds guessing).
Free Gp centres, but you have to wait, maybe you get lucky and it's only 30 minutes or it can be a few hours.
Blood tests and x-rays are free for everyone. You just walk in with your referral whenever you feel up to it and then wave bye to the receptionist. Never waited longer than an hour.
CT and MRI you have to pay towards if you arent a pensioner or child and are not an in-patient in a hospital , in which case it's free. I'd day 100 pounds max ( trying to convert currencies).
And you can always see a GP the same day. It might not be your preferred one but you will see one.
If not don't worry, if you live anywhere vaguely near a city , then you can call a GP to come to your home. They start at 6pm . No charge to a citizen. Not available regionally which is a flaw. Just due to a lack of regional doctors.
Not sure why you don't have something like that, as size wise the UK is pretty small so should be able to cover most areas pretty easily.
Best wishes OP!

People make mistakes. I can see why you’re upset but aggressively attacking the GP won’t achieve much.

A family member is a gp and is receiving treatment for cancer in her 40s. She’s convinced the stress and pressure of the job contributed to her cancer.

I don’t think the GP can dictate the workload of another medical professional. They would describe the issue and then the specialist would decide if a priority based on their other referrals and current workload.

Being a parent/carer is just incredibly challenging. Very few people “choose” it, yet somehow the “system” makes it feel like they think we did. And it’s just repeated trauma again and again - each time you have to explain it all again for the bloody umpteenth time. Oh and then we have to actually care for our child.

i do understand. And I’d be so upset to have missed something like this (in my work role).

but honestly, I don’t get why a patient would choose to go to the media to complain at this point. Your GP hasn’t had a chance to explain or apologise yet. Obviously they might have maliciously and deceitfully actively decided to not refer just to be awful. But it’s very unlikely, isn’t it? More likely that they are human, made an error and it’d just be miserable to be dragged through the papers for it…

I’ve voted YABU. I work in an outpatients department et the hospital and everything is always “urgent”

if it was that urgent you’d have followed it up a lot sooner

You cannot go privately to jump the NHS list, they closed that loop a few years ago. If you go private you risk losing your nhs spot and are liable for all costs associated with your care.

I’m wondering why you’ve never been back to the GP with your child in the last 10 months if their condition has been deteriorating?

We’ve had a similar situation with my sister. Referred “urgently “ by the GP. Except she wasn’t, the GP forgot. Despite chasing, checking and being assured the referral has been made. 6 months later and still no scan until she realised her mistake. No formal apology, just excuses about being busy. Once the scan was actually referred she was seen urgently. A full hysterectomy and radiotherapy, and finally on the mend but could have cost her her life.

Yeah, this. And the fact that not once during those ten months did she think to check the NHS app or call up the team to see what was going on.

You were the one who said you were considering it, but you make it sound as if the person posting this has plucked a nonsensical idea from the air. It came from you.

It's a sad state of affairs when you have a follow up on whether a doctor has actually done what they were supposed to do 🙄. This has happened to me twice now so I do always check up but it shouldn't be necessary.

Say she had been referred as promised and she had followed it up if her child's health had declined, would that have made a difference to the wait time?

Sometimes. If you’re getting worse, your GP can ask for the referral to be escalated. It may not always work, but it can do.

Agreed. You shouldn’t have to follow up with your Gp to check that they’ve done their job and sent the referral.
do you email your child’s school to ask if they’ve managed to complete your child’s report?
do you email your solicitor to remind them to complete the contract for your new house?
do you email Virgin and remind them to send you an invoice for your broadband?

I would make a complaint. Sympathies as my GP's are equally useless. They need spoon feeding to do the most basic of things and have a terrible attitude

Be prepared for the complaint to be fobbed off by a sorry / not sorry letter from the practice
I would then escalate it to these people www.ombudsman.org.uk

Ignore the people saying it's just one of those things / you should have chased it. It's not your job, it's the GP's job. The surgery is being paid to do their job, it's hardly a favour

Edited to withdraw erroneous comment.

From my point of view as a hospital consultant, it can be quite stressful to receive these urgent requests from the chief executive or medical director, following a complaint from an MP. In order to prioritise somebody, another patient sometimes has to be moved off the list which isn’t always fair either.

I’m sorry this happened to you OP. So frustrating.

Well ypu would of the report wast available, the invoice wasn't enacted and the contract didn't get exchanged.

We are our own/child's care coordinators. We are the only people to hold all the info and have the 360 degree perspective. It's a nonsense to surrender any oversight and management with absolutely no checks on the process. That's why the NHS app and similar (my local hospital has Epic) gove you this access. Precisely for this.

Oh yes you can and no they didn't and no they aren't. Co payments (mixing NHS and private treatments) have been allowed for years now.

I saw an ologist privately on April 10th after being told the week before that no NHS appointments were available and don't contact them for months. I was started on the drug I needed that day. He referred me straight into his NHS practice and my first NHS appointment was exactly the same date that a neighbouring department had by then given me for a first appointment. By that time I had already been on a drug that was resolving my symptoms for 3 months. Symptoms which could have resulted in a stroke at any time - now how much would that have cost the NHS?

My husband has always had scans on his heart paid for by the NHS booked by a private consultant ever since a heart operation 15 years ago.

Incidentally I tried to cancel the other appointment 3 times and was still sent a snotty message that I had failed to turn up. I sent proof I had contacted them but no response. And someone else left waiting longer than necessary by NHS admin failures.

Ditto.
Same here... I'm mentally exhausted by a career in primary care- I've semi retired but even still... the cold sweat when you realised you forgot to do something - the workload is immense and worsening.
Forgetting to do a routine referral isn't great absolutely ... I would be narked too - but yes... we are only human and kicking people about for dropping one out of a million balls you're attempting to juggle wont achieve anything but pile of the stress...

Ask your practice for online access to your daughter's electronic medical record. Our practice uses "SystmOnline" and the "Airmid" app but yours may use a different platform.

Then in future, you will have access to copies of referral letters.

Then yes I think this is disgusting.

I would ask for a meeting with the practice manager. Good that you have paperwork potentially, as you need dates and times.

Blaming this mother is a bit rich!

I want to thank the OP for alerting everyone to the fact that you need to double check that things have been done. That isn't as easy as it sounds, though, I get information from 3 different systems, PatientsKnowBest for my eyes, the NHS app for my ology appoinments and Patient Access for my GP. OH has to use 2 other systems to get his results.

I would add that you should take no notice of the GP standard statement when blood tests are done. It seems that they routinely say "if there are no problems you won't hear from us". We'll that's fine and dandy if there are no problems. But if the results never came through or the GP forgot to look at them or forgot to contact you, you'll never know.

So my advice would be to insist in seeing your blood test results as well. And use the Internet extensively to be sure that you know what they mean if they are marked as abnormal.