Is anyone else just utterly deflated with the NHS?

[SpicyWater]

Please can someone tell me what I can do to try and fix the broken system and get the help that I need/want.

I have a chronic health condition and I find myself utterly exhausted and upset every time I try and seek help. Why do people need to jump through so many hoops and climb so many hurdles just to bloody speak with someone?

And even then, it's your luck of the draw if the hcp you speak with still cares enough to listen and take you seriously. Or if they decide you are another pain in the arse woman that's a 'burden' with our exaggerated ailments, you are kicked to the kerb and left to suffer.

I don't ask for much, I don't complain as I know how hard it is for the staff trying to navigate things on their side but I just don't think I can take much more of this 'treatment'.

What, if anything can I do to get the care that I need and deserve?

I purposely let myself suffer and let things linger much longer than they should as I just can't face the fight of trying to contact anyone or seek help. When I do seek help, I am often gaslight and treated like an idiot, because there's just so much deeply embedded misogyny in our HC system, that you have to reach critical levels before anyone will take you seriously.

It's just so bloody upsetting and I feel utterly powerless and unsupported from the people that are paid to help.

Anyway, I'd best get some rest after another long day of being failed by those that are supposed to help. Maybe my luckily finger will be the one that's selected on the chaotic hunger games GP call queue in the morning. sighs*

I don’t know what health issues you have but I’m sorry you feel like this. I work for NHS and honestly things are a joke. There are so many unnecessary people involved in decision making that there is no communication and things get missed plus we have no staff. No excuse. I can’t offer any help as I also feel the same way as you what I would speak to your GP about your health issues and ask what the plan is. What referrals have been made, get a rough estimate on waiting times and when you’ll been seen. If things don’t improve then complain.

My GPs are ridiculously busy. Last time I called for an appointment, I was 34th in the call queue. However, when I did get to see a GP she was brilliant.

If it’s your GP that’s not helping, perhaps you should change to a different practice.

I purposely let myself suffer and let things linger much longer than they should as I just can't face the fight of trying to contact anyone or seek help
@SpicyWater

I understand and do the same. However I recently hit on a new GP, and she was fantastic. Has ordered loads of new (to me) blood tests and l actually feel a bit hopeful for the first time in a long while.

So it only takes one person to help to make a big difference. Keep going op and access the below you need, I hope you find someone a le to help you soon xx

This calling up for a GP appointment and being 34th in the queue etc. is utterly ridiculous. Does anyone know when this became a thing, and why?

I live in the US now and when I need a GP appt I book it through an app and get to choose the doctor. It takes seconds.

With all the money that the NHS spunks on consultancy projects, can’t they get a similar app / system developed and implemented?

Phone NHS direct, they can arrange someone from the surgery to call you back.

I also deliberately wait until things have become very bad before I try and get help for things. I've had some niggling things for years that I don't have the strength to seek help for.

I completely relate to everything you've said. I feel dread at the idea of dealing with the NHS now. When you're chronically unwell and you need a lot of treatment organised, it's literally one ridiculous error after another. Then you get some doctor speaking to you like you're an idiot periodically. It's so draining.

I tried that and was told that they will not even remotely entertain me until my GP surgery is closed. It's the GP that had a duty of care during the day.

Thank you all for the support. It's so sad to see so many others are also feeling the same way.

I didn't manage to secure an appointment again today. I'll now likely need to wait until I'm at critical levels before I can receive the help I need, further exasperating my chronic illness.

I understand that it's the system and not the people so I won't take my frustration out on them. I can only imagine how miserable it must be working on the other side of the screen.

I just wish I had the knowledge or power to implement a change. People deserve better and the care we receive is quite frankly inhumane. My thoughts are with everyone else also fighting these battles.

Our surgery had the option to book an appointment online but during Covid this feature was cancelled. They’ve never reinstated it.

It’s so frustrating isn’t it. My dad is on immunosuppressants and had an ear infection. He needed antibiotics and he knows if he doesn’t get them quick he gets very poorly, rang the GP and they offered him an appointment over a week away. He said he didn’t need a GP just a prescription but they couldn’t do that. He ended up having to ring 111 and go to the hospital and sit for 10 hours. They gave him antibiotics, he then got sick from sitting next to poorly people for 10 hours.

My gran had bone cancer last year and thankfully we were able to double check all of her appointments- her 12 hour surgery was nearly cancelled because a MRSA swab was missed in the preop and I had to leave work and drive her 5 hours for a 30 second swab because no other hospital could do it. They also booked her in for an MRI on her hip accidentally so that was another wasted trip (and the poor person who should have had the appointment didn’t).

Every Dr and nurse I have encountered have been really good but it just seems the system is so messy and overrun that it’s chaos. I worry about the people that are unable to check for errors or are unable to advocate for themselves.

What can you do?

vbase your voting on paying more taxes to make the system work - we pay far less than many equivalent countries and expect a decent service - pay for shit, get shit

If only my vote made a difference and things were this simple.

I've never voted Conservative and I've never supported the parties that are responsible for this shit show. Tbh Labour haven't been any better than the tories since their win.

I'd happily pay more taxes however, I have no control over what our leaders decide and what their parties spend their budgets on. I'm just a very very small cog in a fucked up system.

In Denmark the base tax rate is 48% according to the today prog on radio 4 this morning.

Well, the advice on what to do will depend on lots of things.

What's the chronic condition? What do you want help with at the moment?

You said you can't see the GP today - what's the booking system? Do they have E-consult? Do they use e-doc services like Livi?

DW still works in the NHS as a community nurse, seems never a day goes by now without someone else who was misdiagnosed or not treated quickly enough , some of it is down to GP practice but an awful lot seems to come from the hospitals, don’t know what the solution is.

Our GP only has the call at 8am and fight for an appointment telephone service. Still very much in the dark ages.

I have an autoimmune disease that's causing problems. There's no secondary care in place. I was diagnosed in a&e and told to get on with it. So whenever I have an issue, my only option is to call the GP for advice or treatment.

I think I might need a referral to a specialist but I need to speak with a hcp to find out what to do.

A&e and the pharmacy can't help. I can't go to OOH as I'm often told to follow up with my GP as they are pretty clueless with my condition and often can't or won't help.

I need some kind of a care plan or similar treatment plan however the GP is so overstretched that they are only really able to deal with 'emergency' cases and issues. The lack of care for chronic conditions on the NHS has been a real eye opener.

On occasion when I’ve really needed an appointment, turning up at reception at 7.55 am has worked. You get an appointment before they start taking calls.

I have good and average experiences.

Last summer I had hospital appointments very quickly and surgery within 4 weeks. It has been 9 months and the specialist nurse still calls me monthly to check all is OK.

I have had a very long wait to see cardiology though but I assume they are one of the busiest departments.

My recent smear test took a lot of back and forth to get a suitable appointment as they only ever seemed to have one appointment each attempt and it kept falling during my period. I got there in the end.

My old GP practice wouldn’t book any appointments in person, it was 7am by telephone only.

My new one allows you to walk in at any point in the day and book a routine appointment in advance.

Completely deflated. DH was misdiagnosed with catastrophic results, I have lost all faith in the system. I am sorry so many others are struggling too.

Just wait till reform let private health companies get hold of what’s left of the nhs…then you’ll realise what a queue is…with a large bill at the end of it!

It can feel like talking to brick wall. My daughter feels like she's never been taken seriously - for her own chronic health problems and now her children's. It is now apparent that undiagnosed hereditary conditions have worsened as they've gone down the generations.

My granddaughter had surgery the day she was born (prematurely). Due to Covid her one and only follow up appointment was remotely. Since then there have been many cancelled/rearranged appointments due to retirement, long term sick leave, rearranged clinics and lots of different locums.

Yesterday she finally got to see a .... locum.

She now has to wait another indeterminable period for further testing as it's obvious that she needs further surgery to correct what was done in the first instance. The life changing diagnosis she received last September could have been diagnosed at birth if the original consultant she had, had connected the difficulties encountered during the first surgery together with her other obvious symptoms present from birth.

My granddaughter has had discomfort and been screaming in pain since birth. She has been complaining of a range of pain ever since she could describe how she was feeling. No one has ever taken my daughter seriously in describing symptoms which are all regularly documented from the first remote consultation (GP, paediatricians).

My granddaughter had to wait just over five years in order to actually be seen in person by the relevant consultant after her surgery.

The only reason she was seen yesterday was because her Paediatric Respiratory Consultant had written trying to
trace the original team involved in her surgery, insisting she was seen urgently as there were obvious problems indicated on the chest x-rays she'd been having for the past 8 months.

This whole situation has made my daughter question her own sanity -
she's convinced that certain 'professionals' have concerns about 'munchausen's by proxy' (now renamed).

Then you need to write to the surgery.

Keep it factual but stress the impact on your health, including mental health, and ability to do daily tasks.

Ask to be booked in to see a GP - not a paramedic or nurse or similar - to discuss the long term issues.

There will be an email address somewhere on their website or a contact us form or similar. Worst case scenario write an actual letter, drop it in to reception, and address it to the practice manager.

Oh, I feel your pain.

I am waiting for an 'urgent' appointment. Supposed to be 2 weeks, chase after 4. It's been 6 weeks. The number given to call is wrong. The number on their website is wrong. I have called the hospital switchboard and got through to the dept but no answer there. Left message, no call back. Have emailed two different addresses over the last week, no response from either. Am exhausted of trying.

Also had a new issue for about a month but I can't FACE getting a GP appointment to discuss it!

Yeah, this is worth a go.

I've spoken to my GP surgery manager about being unable to get appointments. It's still very hard, but she has added a note onto the system for me to say that the receptionists should try overriding to book me an appointment. I don't think I could get an appointment at all if that note wasn't on there.

I do have a specialist but that's pretty much no use to me. I once got sent to A&E so someone could ring the department for me internally. Of course they have an external number - but no one would answer it. Imagine how much NHS money was wasted on that - just to get someone to answer a phone!