to feel irritated by the NHS conveyor belt?

[mrsbean78]

I will start this by saying that I work in the NHS, and feel proud to be a able to offer services that are free at the point of service.

However, having my baby has been my first true taste of what it's like to be on the other side of the fence in terms of receiving 'services' (vs quick trips to the family planning or GP or asthma nurse).

Some of the services I've received have been top notch. However, I am increasingly frustrated by dealings with baby clinics and health visitors, which I find very stressful and not very worthwhile.

To illustrate: today, we were given an appointment for 1.00, with my child's name on it. When we got there, we were put in a queueing system and despite arriving at 12.50, were number 8. (The other mums knew better, having been before!). Dh had come with me (even though it's round the corner!) as I am having back trouble and the roads are still slippy here so I felt I needed help. He works close by, he thought he'd come home at lunch and we'd be in and out in half an hour, 40 mins tops.

It took forever to get to the point of weighing him, and afterwards, the HV came to talk to me as he has only gained a pound since birth. As Baby B was screaming the place down (as she said, 'oooh, he has a very piercing cry!') and I was feeling quite stressed about it, I asked her to look in the red book as there is a full history of early interventions due to failure to gain weight and subsequent regaining (he was being weighed daily at one point). Yet she still spent twenty minutes asking me questions that she could have answered by looking in the book (e.g. who is your health visitor? who did you see at the hospital? when did you see them?). Then she measured his length and head circumference and said 'oh, do you know his head is 98th centile? And his weight is only 25th? Hmmm.' That's all she said (we had been there for an hour and a half at this stage). Then we were sent to wait again to see the GP, who also measured his head, asked did he smile and said 'well,his fontanelle seems normal' before shunting us out the door at 3 o'clock saying he would 'review' in three weeks.

Now I know, because of my work, that the smiling question was because his large head might indicate a developmental difficulty and the comment about the fontanelle was related to potential hydrocephaly as, being 98th centile, his large head is, well, out of the normal range.

Yet nothing is explained, nothing talked over, even when you ask, very directly - so I said, 'would you be concerned that his head is so large, at 98th centile' and the response was 'hmmm, not overly, we'll see'. Very useful, factual information there. I feel like tidbits of potentially stressful information are dangled in front of you with lots of raised eyebrows and 'hmmmmms' without any reassurance or explanation and then your time is up so you're out on the road. Dh was out of work for three hours when I thought we'd have a quick appointment: now he has to use annual leave, when he was going to use flexi time. And what did we learn? Our baby has a big head. That's it.

What was the point, given that my Health Visitor is coming to the house to weigh him tomorrow? When if I booked a straightforward GP appointment I'd be in and out in twenty minutes? I feel like my stress levels went through the roof, the baby was exposed to a range of people coughing and spluttering in the GP's surgery for far longer than seemed necessary and I brought the red book for them to fill in with more info that they probably won't bother to look at next time!

Grrrrr. Do other people feel this way? Or have I just been incredibly naive in thinking that all the guff that we have oodles of training on at work about involving and informing patients might actually have some impact on everyday services? Yes, I know that everyone's busy and it's amazing it's free and these baby clinics probably pick up a lot of serious illness and disease.. but they seem like cattle-herding to me, and I'd bet lots of people find their dealings with even 'well baby' clinics stressful!

Probably just lettin off steam, but would be interested to hear other's POVs

come to ireland where you have to pay 55 euro just to see a doctor!!!! That'll cure you of your ingratitude.

sorry that was a bit harsh.

i just miss the nhs. mostly what i miss about it is the 'freeness' of it.

YANBU I have felt like this since my first pregnancy and pretty much every doctor/HV/Hospital appointment since then.
for example my daughter has been hmmed at for being firstly too small and then too large, my son has been admitted into hospital with chest problems one doctor told me he needed to have chest xrays and be admitted, they changes shifts so a new doctor came and toldme he had croup and sent us home. He was rushed back the next day when his breathing got alot worse.

I HAVE had a number of GOOD experiences though most of these are when you nag,nag and nag again for what you want whether its information or action!

I am wondering if you are expecting the appointment to tell you something when actually the health professionals' expectation were to to gather information. And they couldn't tell you their conclusions bevause they hadn't drawn any at that point?

But I do agree it's frustrating.

And the waiting is soul-destroying.

Well, the baby clinic I took my DS to happened to be fantastic. But I think part of that is that we have a really great HV who runs the clinic.

I've only ever been there so DS could get his various Vacs, which he is now done with until MMR. However, I took him to see the GP for an ear infection and while I was waiting the HV happened to come by. She stopped to say hi and said she'd ring me and come see me (there has been some concern about me and PND). Which she did less than a week later.

So I really think it is luck of the draw.

There were certainly times during my pregnancy, which was high risk, that I felt like I was on a conveyor belt at the antenatal clinic, that's for sure!

But seeing as I am from America and I know how crappy (or unavailable) private health care can be? I am willing to feel like that since I know the NHS will see me, no out of pocket charge, when I need to see them.

Baby clinics are mini versions of hell, there is no need to go to them, so don't, i never bothered with DD and she's still alive

I also had a similar issue with the size of DS2s head they had me totally paniced, when we eventually say a proper Pediatrician they couldn't see what the issue was!

par for the course I;m afraid - I can count the number of times I took dd to the baby clinic on, well, one finger tbh

I developed a philosphy of 'if they're ill, take them to the GP; if they're not ill they don't need to see anyone'

has served me well

bit confused why you went to clinic anyway when the HV is going to your house the following day.

I know what you mean Mrs Bean.
It's good that you dont have to pay on the spot.
I dont see it as free as we've paied through our taxes.

Don't go. If you are worried about anything, see your GP.

First baby - every week
Second & third - once in a blue moon
Fourth baby - tried to be more conscientious, ended up being told I had to give her formula as slow weight gain, refused, HV refused to see me, ended up in the hospital seeing Paed consultant who took one look at her and said "she's fine".

Every other aspect of NHS midwife/baby service has been great, but HVs/Baby clinic nothing more than a PITA IME. Although I have made some very lovely friends through them, so as a social event they are OK

Sounds like you had a very stressful experience! They really should have explained things better rather than leave you to worry anyway!

Although not as bad, when I was 40 weeks pregnant I had an appointment at the ante-natal clinic for which I was waiting over an hour in a stuffy waiting area, and then when I finally got in they didn't know why they needed to see me! I had only been to MW previous day! Not what you need when heavily pregnant and knackered!

Also I once saw a consultant who diagnosed me with a condition and rather than explain it to me told me to look it up on the internet, where i found a lot of depressing info! Later saw a consultant privately, and turns out I probably don't have it anyway.

Have an appointment in baby clinic this week so will see how that goes!

On the plus side of NHS, I was impressed that after having my baby boy I was able to stay two nights in hospital so that I could get feeding established, and the staff were really helpful.

Maggie there's no snow, I'm from Ireland and believe me, there are times I thank heavens for the NHS (apart from the fact that they pay my wage).

I just find it stressful and, sometimes, too interventionist. As someone asked, why did I go to clinic when HV coming tomorrow? Apparently it's something to do with insurance, as my Health Visitor is based at a different clinic to my GP (again, no idea why, something to do with commissioning and who holds the purse strings). So, I was told by my HV I have to go to baby clinic in my GPs but will be seen by her, also? I received an appointment through the post for this one, as it's the 6-8 week check - so it wasn't something I sought out!

Ormrenewed I agree, that's probably what's happening. But it's a bad idea. We've done a lot of talking in our service about patient communication and patients have a right to know what you are gathering information about.. because, like in my case, most people will quickly work out from the line of questioning that the professional has a hypothesis and will stress more if they don't know what that is than if they are told the hypotheses, even if what they are told is frightening. The consensus for us has been to talk through your thinking.. e.g. 'I don't know why his head is this size, it might be a family trait and just the way he is or it might be that there is a different underlying cause that is making his head larger than average, but right now, we need to just monitor by checking how it grows over the next few weeks'. That gives the patient a chance to ask as many questions as they feel comfortable asking - e.g. what kind of underlying cause? - or to say, 'oh yeah, everyone in our family has huge heads!', depending on where they're at.

When the NHS gets this right, it is the best in the world. My delivery services were excellent, and I had an amazing lactation consultant. The pain of it is that the quality of the service is so dependent on individual people choosing to go the extra mile or just work to the stupid governmental targets (in and out in 7 minutes!).

Maggie-there's-no-snow, I am from Ireland! So believe me, I am grateful to the NHS, not least for employing me. I feel quite passionate about NHS services.. spend a lot of my real life (when not on mat leave!) thinking about how to improve those services, so when I say I am disheartened by these experiences, it is on a professional as well as a personal level. Having had a baby, it will definitely alter my own practice as I understand parental anxiety a lot better now! That's an aside.. I would never bash the NHS but I do think sometimes the target culture runs the risk of taking the humanity out of it. Where you have a fantastic, committed individual you get fantastic, committed services.. but where professionals are feeling beleagured, you get this conveyor belt service which is what irritates me.

Ooops - spot the baby brain. I repeated myself!