Anyone work in relevant bits of the NHS or have other personal experience and can advise please?
I’m so frustrated with the NHS at the moment re: my dad. Re: his knees, he’s been waiting years for the first of two full knee replacement operations which have been delayed for reasons due to other health conditions and issues which meant he wasn’t fit for surgery. He finally is and had his pre-op at the start of this year and had to have an extra heart scan as extra precaution which was done a week ago and was fine so just waiting an op date now. Meanwhile he’s been told he also needs a procedure relating to his prostate (TMI sorry!) and also needs cataracts removed. Both are day procedures, but neither can be done before his knee op as even fixing a date for them would cause his knee op to be cancelled? His own GP told him not to tell the eye specialist about his upcoming knee surgery as if he’s lucky enough to get a date for that through before the knee op date and the knee team find out they’ll cancel his knee op. GP says it’s because health board don’t want to pay for more than one operation per patient per year.
He’s also been told he needs another referral to a specialist for a non-urgent issue which will likely have a long waiting list too but again this can’t be done now as to do so would mean his knee op gets cancelled. Can anyone help me make sense of this please?
I’m hoping that either my dad or myself have misunderstood and that we aren’t treating patients in such a rationed and bureaucratic way.