Is the NHS closed unless treating Coronavirus patients?

[TomTomRunner]

If so, I didn't know.

I just turned up for my first routine breast screening appointment. It was at a hospital five miles away.

I'm a key worker and have to go into work today. The only way I would make it on time for work would be for my partner to drive me and then drive me to work. We have two kids so we all had to go.

I turned up and there was a note on the door saying appointments were 'paused'. Why the staff could not ring round or send a letter out was beyond me, or advise people on social media. 10 mile round trip.

Surely stopping screening causes more angst? Future ill health? Is the NHS closed unless you are being treated for Coronavirus? Are outpatients closed? I need to see my GP about a separate issue, would I get a referral now? Genuinely confused.

So if you are NHS staff previiously running clinics etc, what are you doing now?

Doing them over the phone. Routine screenings, blood tests, check ups all on hold. A+e is open for anything urgent or life threatening.

I would've thought that was quite obvious to anyone who watched the news. They should've sent you a letter yes, but I think most people would've called to check first, especially if they had to take their whole family with them.

I have 2 active referrals,one of which I susoect I'll be on a waiting list for whenever normality resimes,the other still in process.
Allergy resting - my appointment was moved to a virtual one via phone,but nobody told me ( luckily I was at home ) .I assume the admin is taking a while to get up to speed.
A friend is going into the hospital for the treatment she has for her chronic condition,they are still running it with lots of protective measures in place both for staff and her.

If you've genuinuely got a medical concern, then anyone must ask for help, obviously best in the present conditions if you phone first. Apparently our local A&E is very quiet (know two people who work there) - all the timewasters have stopped going in, but unfortunately a few genuine ones aren't getting the help they need.

OP, not knocking you, but I'd have phoned you first to check given that the staff normally have to get quite close to you.

Is this your first screening? Like smear tests it's not something that can be done at a social distance and although I know that routine screening isn't taking place at the moment even if I didn't I wouldn't have turned up without checking first.

The NHS isn't closed though, a GP friend of mine says she's doing the same number of appointments as normal but remotely

@Polly02 ENT is up there with dentistry. Super high risk so all cancelled bar urgent 2 week wait cancer appointments where I am.

Most NHS workers are either working remotely (which takes an age to set up) or redeployed to ward work to back fill shielding / self isolating colleagues.

Main ethos in our hospital is do life saving stuff and treat covid to get patients home but otherwise - do nothing face to face to reduce transmission and get the RO value lower so we can begin to manage it in the future. Anticipated 6 months before routine stuff starts up again.

My consultant appointment was changed to a phone appointment, no problem with that but my B12 injections have been stopped. They are literally lifesaving. I have asked if I could get some syringes and try and give it to myself but they said no. Told me to buy some tablets, but I cannot absorb them. That is why I am on injections. I did point out this if this carries on my levels will drop and I will get ill but there is nothing that can be done apparently.

I'm under the adult mental health team due to pstd and a psychotic break after dc1 was born. I wasn't on any medication because after 2 years of therapy was doing really well. Then this happened and I'm back where I started, struggling to hold it together for my kids, suidical thoughts, can't sleep, nightmares when I manage, constantly on alert and so damn angry, can't see any positives in this at all. Can't get any anti-depressants though from either the GP or the adult mental health team.

The GP just says it's the Adult mental health team's issue. They say present to A&E if I'm going to hurt the children...I assume that means hurting myself is absolutely fine.

It definitely feels like the NHS is closed and feeds nicely in my blossoming paranoia.

I'm increasingly getting the same impression, OP. I was referred for a scan in early February to rule out anything serious (with the symptoms having begun back in October). Having not heard back by early March I left a message with the department of the hospital but never heard back. It was only after the virus situation escalated a few weeks later that I read online that procedures like mine were being cancelled. Still nothing from the hospital. I can't even imagine when they're going to get round to the scan now. Autumn, when it will have been a whole year since I went to my GP? Can only hope it's nothing serious.

I really think they should have told you it was cancelled, OP - that several PPs think it was on you to assume it was off and to call ahead to check just reinforces that the NHS is closed off.

Those who need B12 injections

Have you written to your local MP?

BulkyFlower

I'm in the same situation re b12 injections though my GP has told me they are only making us miss one injection and will do the next one when it is due. I already have macrocytic anaemia though, even with three monthly injections so god knows how bad it will be if and when I get the injection. Wonder if they'll have to start the loading doses again? I also can't absorb it orally.

I work in a GP surgery and while our doors are closed we are very much open. All appointments are via telephone in the first instance. In some situations the GP will do a video consultation and if appropriate they will arrange a same day face to face appointments. Our nurses are also still working and seeing patients and doing home visits for high risk patients.

Bulky I don't understand why you can't have your injection. Babies are still being vaccinated, and they are still taking blood from donors. Why are those two activities low risk and yours impossibly high risk? I would push a bit more, it sounds like someone doesn't know their bottom from their elbow.

Cancer treatment has not been stopped in our area - DP is an oncologist and he's busy as all the nursing support has been moved to ICU and A&E. They're holding phone call clinics instead of physical clinics, giving chemo and Radiotherapy as normal. Yes - surgery has been stopped but that means more patients are being offered chemo and radiotherapy instead.
Please don't make sweeping statements - it does no one any good

It’s been widely reported now that other deaths are up. It was reported earlier today. There is definite concern that people are not getting urgent treatment. I think screening is definitely not happening but lots of other things are on hold. There is a lot of concern that there will be deaths from untreated illnesses further down the line.

Just before all this I had a few health issues and they found a growth. I got a scan the day before lockdown happened.

I then got a phone call from a consultant who referred me to the correct place, and I have been given an appointment for a phone consultation. I'm not sure what that will achieve, since it's a biopsy I need, but at least I haven't just been abandoned I guess.

TBH- with the multiple threads on here about services such as cancer clinics, screening programs (smears for 1) and multiple other departments shut, plus everything in the media, that you didn't ring the clinic to double check! I agree, they should have called or made contact though. Was there anything on their website?

I have osteoarthritis and need a smaller brace (I lost 11kg), but my clinic appointment was cancelled a month ago.

Had a consultation with GP 3 weeks ago on phone. I booked it all online, and never even considered going into the surgery or trying to get a face-to-face appointment.

Today I had a viability, pregnancy scan at hospital. They are staggering their appointments more than normal, but certainly open. There was another nurse in the room who usually worked in urodynamics and pelvic floor exercises. Her clinic has shut, so she was helping in the gynae clinic.

Another friend who is a school nurse has been re-deployed to work in the local hospital in their childrens ward (although its very quiet).

I work with cancer patients and most are telling me that a lot of their chemotherapy and investigations are on hold. Just spoke to a client today who is waiting for an endoscopy to check the progress of his cancer and he is just waiting not knowing.

No, the NHS is not closed. I had a (non covid) health emergency last week where I would have likely died without medical care. I was seen promptly in A and E, transferred to ICU and my life saved. Scary time to be critically ill though.

if it's not a matter of life and death right there and then then there is a lack of resource. Stores problems up for later but hopefully means people will around to have the problems to deal with later, rather than being dead like I could have been if I'd not been able to access services.

After the reports this weekend about how doctors were concerned that people weren't coming forward about non-Coronavirus ailments, I contacted our GP about something DD has going on and which we'd seen them about in late Feb and been told to come back in a month if it hadn't cleared up. The month coincided with the schools closing so I left it. It's now been another month, it still hasn't cleared up and DD is crying with pain daily. I was disappointed to get a really snotty reply telling me that they were closed due to a global pandemic and that I should call 999 for a life threatening condition and otherwise wait until they re-opened to contact them.

DPotter

Chemo has been stopped in my area until this week. They've just started offering some treatments in a private hospital here.

My dad was due to have a biopsy for ? Cancer the week lockdown was announced. That was cancelled and he is still waiting, having been referred on the two week pathway so it's not unreasonable for people to think that cancer treatment has stopped, because for some it has.

I don't understand why you can't have your injection. Babies are still being vaccinated, and they are still taking blood from donors

I think because they've decided that we can do without b12 injections, at least for s while, whereas not vaccinating babies will potentially lead to many more problems.

I am now accepting the onus was on me to check. I haven't seen threads on here, I listen to the news a lot and I till didn't cotton on.

I've just looked at the website and it doesn't say anything at all!

here

I am now accepting the onus was on me to check

But everyone phoning up to check (different areas have different levels of service still running) is surely more time consuming for staff than sending a blanket email, text or letter out, of which would be automated to people with appointments in the next few months. They should have let you know.

Re B12, I was talking to my neighbour (74, with a few ongoing health problems) on the phone yesterday and she mentioned she'd had a B12 injection but it was done in the hospital car park.

(I know this is a very serious issue but she then made me roar by recounting that the nurse finished off by saying, bet you're glad it wasn't a cervical smear.)

DHs 80yo aunt died yesterday. She'd had a scan a couple of weeks ago which showed her cancer was back but no more chemo possible because of covid ... we think she more or less gave up at that point, she was admitted to hospital after not being able to get out of bed and went downhill quite rapidly. I know that can happen anyway but chances are she'd have lived a bit longer had things been different. The care she got was kind and compassionate, no faulting that.

Closed to anything other than an accident or an emergency, nurses on the doors of A&E assessing if patients really need to be seen or not. All outpatient appointments cancelled, all surgery cancelled other than life or limb saving. Cancer two week wait referrals are being done via telephone. Endoscopy all on hold.

It’s going to be absolute chaos when things return to normal, the back log is going to be horrendous.