to complain/sue my GP? (long rant)

[mmrred]

We've all had swine flu. Me and DD (15) had it first, then DH came down with it. He had the Tami-flu, seemed to recover, went back to work last Friday, then on Tuesday night his temp went sky-high, vomiting, sweat rolling off him, shaking...I should have called an ambulance but you don't, do you?

On the phone next morning, GP point-blank refused to visit, talked to him on the phone, told him it was a recurrence of the flu, take paracetemol, can't have more Tami-flu, said I could pick up a 7-day sick note from the surgery.

Next day, another horrendous night, he's no better, and now can't drink because he feels so sick, clearly getting dehydrated, finally get GP to agree to make an emergency home visit after morning surgery - she only has one call to make, she says, she'll be there at the latest 2.30. 3.30pm there's STILL no f*cking sign of her.

Now, at this point I should mention that DH has a history of Hodgekins Lymphoma - he's been clear for 10 years but has reduced lung function and a suppressed immune system (lots of radio and chemo therapy). Ironically he's in the at-risk group and would have been offered the vac but he caught it first. Obviously GP surgery know this.

So, at 3.30 I ring AGAIN. Am pssed about by some snotty receptionist and put on hold for 20* minutes because I refuse to hang up and wait for the Dr to phone me ('cos we all know what would happen if I did) and finally I get the cow on the phone, lecturing me about how busy she is, so I tell her that if anything is wrong with my man I will have no compunction about suing her for malpractice and using the sick note following phone diagnosis as evidence. She arrives within 20 minutes.

Even then, she says 'if it was up to her' she would give DH 250mg's of antibiotic and 'review' the situation in 24 hours. DH continuously tells her he feels dreadful (please bear in mind I had to get my mum & dad to help me lift him out of bed to change the sheets as the bed, pillows, everything was soaked with his sweat)

Finally she consents to call an ambulance - the hospital are great and my DH gets all the tests - he has pneumonia and spends the first 24 hours on an oxygen mask and drip.

He's still on I/V antibiotics now. I am so angry I don't know what to do. Is there an excuse for this? What do I do about complaining?

Oh god, I'm so sorry to hear all that...

you must be worried sick indeed... I was with my mum. But i was thousands of miles away and felt soo powerless.

Stay strong, he IS in the right place, and at least they know what he's got... it took them 6 days to find out what Mum had...

I actually ment call the ambulance instead of the GP or when she failed to turn up or at worst after she'd left.

your dh was throwing up before antibiotics yes? hopefully it's the illness not a reaction

oh and to answer your post, I suspect your route of complaint is to practice manager but not sure they will do much so think what you want if you do complain.

Don't feel guilty - I wouldn't have 'phoned the ambulance either. I'd have done exactly what you did.

Hope he gets better soon.

Yeah we are conditioned to not question Drs....

When things are this bad, call an ambulance.

I'm so so sorry your DH and you had to go through this, fucking unacceptable. Write to your MP and your PCT (addresses will be on websites)

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR for you.

Not swine flu related but I know how you feel. My dad had an infection in his foot (diabetic). The gp looked at it three times, gave him some antibiotics and told him to come back in a fortnight. The next day he was rushed to hospital by us as the damned foot was gangrenous. He lost a toe and was very very close to losing his foot.

I guessed it was gangrene because I had been reading a historical novel a few weeks before and one of the characters died from it. Two different gps on three occasions couldn't recognise it. We complained but the whole practice closed ranks and we met brick wall after brick wall. I don't know what you can do but I hope he's ok.

I'd look at changing practices if you can (given that you are unhappy with them anyway). Wait until your dh recovers and then write your complaint. You can always sue after that if you really want, but you'd probably be advised against it unless your dh suffers some logng term harm (which obviously I hope he doesn't). You can cc to whomever you like, I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference though, and I think in general it's better to hold off until you get a response from the practice, and see if there is a good explanation and an apology. If you want advice on how to make your complaint, then you can contact your local PCT (the number for complaints will be given on their web site) or you can contact ICAS (the Independent Complaints Advocacy Services) their contact details sould be on the web site too. But none of this needs to be done now, you can raise a complaint up to a year after an ssue arises.

Be aware though that the first stage of the complaints process means that you have to ask the practice for an explanation first.

Suing the NHS achieves nothing so YABU to want to do that.

I also think it is beneficial to remember that in relation to first request for home visit she was following govt guidelines re the swine flu.

Re second request for visit, it is unlikely the GP was having a long lunch or a manicure. In all likelihood she intended to be with your DH when she said she would but got caught up with the other home visit who also really needed her help.

If you were worried you should have called an ambulance and if you are feeling bad that you didn't (and you shouldn't, you too made a judgement call) then you have to accept some responsibility for that. Hindsight is a wonderful thing

YANBU. We had a similar situation a few months back. DP very ill with flu like symptoms. We listened to all the advice saying not to go and see GP. Ended up calling NHS direct who said that it was swine flu. The Gp we spoke to said that as it was day 2 already there was no point in taking Tamiflu and he personally thought that the side effects outweighed the benefits.

So DP rides it out, feeling awful, only able to move from bed with a great deal of a difficulty (with temperture reaching 40.something at times). He isn't getting any better at all a day or so later. I have to keep going to work. I call him at home one day and he has got 10 times worse and says that he is really quite worried as he clearly was getting worse and he needs to see someone. I say that he 'says' this but actually he can barely speak at this point and can barely swallow so isn't drinking). So after much arguing with a receptionist at the doctors surgery, they finally agree to see him at 6.50pm but she said 'we aren't coming to see you. You'll have to come here' (a bit annoying considering we were told that you have to stay away from the surgery if you have suspected swine flu and because by this point he is really struggling to get out of bed).

At this point it is about 1pm and I call him back and he says he really doesn't feel he can wait that long as he is really struggling with breathing. I rush home (home is a 40 minute drive from work), call surgery on the way and am very polite but explain that we can't wait until 7pm to see someone and that we really need to see someone asap or else I think I may have to take him to A&E. She says she will get a dr to call back but hear nothing so make the decision to take him to A&E.

Managed to get him to the car very slowly as by this point he hadn't eaten properly for about 5 days and also had barely drunk anything. I had to support him as he was very weak by this point.

To cut an already long post short, A&E refuse to see him as they aren't allowed as he has been diagnosed with swine flu! I try to point out that he has only been diagnosed by a man on the phone saying that he has swine flu, no one has looked at him, but they don't care and refuse to look at him! So we go away, feeling a bit bewildered and very concerned that as he isn't getting better, it is something more serious.

Eventually the GP calls who is lovely! He says he will come out on the way home. Guess what, he takes one look at him and says that he may or may not have had swine flu originally but he definitely had a bad case of tonsilitis which he needed antibiotics for. The reason he was struggling to breathe and swallow was because he has huge blisters on his tonsils.

Sorry this post has turned out longer than I thought and obviously your DH situation is much worse given that it developed to pneumonia and given his past health problems, but I just wanted to share our experience.

I was so and after A&E refused to see him - what if it had been something more serious than tonsilitis (not to mention this all happened to be on the day that it came out about that girl whose swine flu developed in to tonsilitis and she died).

Anyway, no, YANBU - I wish I had complained!

Oh yeah and to top it off, the swine flu came website was up and running the following day. We did the symptom checker thing based on what his symptoms had been and the website said we should call 999 asap! That annoyed me as the advice seemed to be so differing from what we were told!

mmrred: hoping everything a bit better this morning? How is DH doing?

YABU

If you were that worried you should have called an ambulance. I can understand this must have been a really stressful and upsetting time but talk of suing?

My good friend is a GP and I often feel for her, the pressure to be super human and all knowing must be bloody awful. You have to remember you are not the only patient with serious problems.

Meant to add hope your DH is feeling better and has a swift recovery.

Thanks for all support - DH is still on drip but off oxygen mask this am.

The hospital probably hasn't contacted the GP practice yet so GP may well have no idea about the pneumonia.

I do think you should make a very stiff complaint to the senior partner and practice manager. Pneumonia is a recognised complication of flu and GP should have been alive to that possibility given your repeated calls and descriptions of the symptoms and been especially cautious given his history.

Practices should be able to distinguish between patients who can wait and patients who need urgent attention.

Google 'Primary Care Foundation' and have a look at their report on Urgent Care - it explains what GP practices SHOULD be doing wrt requests for urgent attention/home visits/out of hours. And maybe point this out to the surgery.

btw, the doc being more than an hour late could well have been because she had other very urgent cases - GP friend of mine had a day last week where one patient got violent in the surgery followed by a home visit to a suicidal and terminally ill alcoholic who refused an ambulance...

This is a really difficult one to judge, I totally understand your predicament - there are those of us who don't call ambulances for reasons of illness and only want to call one if we think its a heart attack etc etc. I do also feel slightly for your Dr as at the moment there are so many people who "think" they are mortally ill when actually they have a sniffle and aren't really that ill at all.

However I think the best course of action would be to write a polite note to your practice manager and say that you are disappointed with the way this was handled, that you understand that it is not an easy time but with your husbands history you feel that there should have been some more support than you actually got and that you have all felt let down by the practice. maybe then leave it at that I am not sure!

i really hope that your dh is well again soon, unfortunately I think GP's (regardless of pay etc etc as that is something completely unrelated) are OK at some things and not so great at everything else due to the nature that they have to have a basic knowledge of everything, only some very good and possibly newer dr's are more specialised. We were v lucky to have a dr who if she didn't know the response was quick to refer you to someone who might be in a better position to help. I guess my family is lucky as my DH has health cover with work so this sometimes helps to get a quicker response. (Also feel if you can get out of the NHS system it free's up a spot for someone who really needs it - but again we are lucky because of the health cover)

I hope that you all get over this soon.

GP's don't like to make home visits because for every one they could have seen about 10 patients at the practice. Totally understandable.

You are being very unreasonable. I can't stand this 'somebody else's fault' crap that seems to have become so infectious.

He's your husband, you could see how ill he was - so take responsiblity. You should have just dialled 999.

YANBU AT ALL

I can relate to this so much - whatever you do contact the PCT and copy them into all your correspondance.

If my DH was that ill, I would call an ambulance, not wait for someone else to tell me to. You know your DH better than any GP.

Also, you are upset and angry and I can see why, but calling her a cow is not very reasonable. She was more than likely dealing with other patients, rather than avoiding you.

I am slowly recovering from Swine Flu and it has been awful, and I am in generally good health. So I do see where you are coming from but don't think you will achieve anything by letting your anger and fristration push you into legal action against your GP.

Am with 6feetunder re harshness.

YANBU to be upset and has been treated poorly.

Sueing a little too far, but def write the letter later.

As an aside, if you're not allowed to take them into dr's surgery, dr won't visit at home, and A&E refuse to see a patient, all because they've been diagnosed with swine flu, how are you supposed to get help for someone who's condition is deteriorating?

Sorry to hear about your husband mmrred - it must have been frustrating and stressful for you. Hope he recovers quickly.

Catski - You are quite right.

There is a real problem with the swine flu guidelines. I've noticed a couple of comments to this effect on other swine flu threads. I do think that highlighting this in a letter would be a very good thing to do.

It's crazy.

catski - that's a crucial question. A diagnosis that means no doctor will touch you is very risky indeed.

My GP surgery has a swine flu clinic on a separate floor to the normal rooms which seems sensible.

There have already been cases where people have suffered because doctors have assumed swine flu rather than any other illness such as tonsillitis.