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 agree and I have lost a lot of faith in the NHS. I recently had a bad fall down some steps outside and landed hard on my ankle, which made a loud crack. I was in such pain and couldn’t walk. A family member took me to a local minor injuries unit as I was worried my ankle or foot was fractured.

The staff I saw after waiting hours were dismissive and discharged me with no x-ray or pain relief. When I read the report they sent to my GP on the NHS app, I saw the nurse had written things that weren’t true, including that I could weight bear and walk well, there was no swelling or bruising and that I felt that it was improving even while in the clinic. The exact opposite was true (I needed a wheelchair to get to the car and couldn’t walk for a week after due to pain and swelling/ bruising). I am shocked that they can lie like this to cover their bad decisions and save their budget by not giving x-rays.

I don’t want to complain or make a big deal but I want to put the facts right and am considering writing to my GP and saying that report isn’t correct.

@taxguru @iseethembloom I am so sorry to hear your stories

Sadly, I am not surprised. I've posted on here about some of Mum's experiences over the years. I don't bat an eyelid at the lies and the cover-ups now.

I was extremely puzzled though when I last took her out of hospital and put her in a private care home. The doctors kept telling me that she would be "out of the system" -as if that were a bad thing!

It has taken me two years to finally see a GP, who actually listened and took my symptoms seriously enough to refer me.
Two years!!
I could not get a GP appointment. When I eventually managed to see a doctor , she was abruptly, rude, refused to refer me, as she was a locum.

Her lack of empathy and care meant that I did not attempt to book another appointment for a further 6 months.

However, I was concerned that one day I would collapse in front of my son and possibly asphyxiate, (hence traumatising him), so I endeavoured to make another appointment.

Incredibly, I was referred and seen by a specialist within 5 weeks.

I live in London.

I work and pay taxes. For what?

I'm on my third referral to gastro in two and a half years. They do one test, find nothing, then discharge you. So you go back on the bottom on the waiting list. Leaving you in a horrible level of pain with increasingly worse bowel and bladder problems. Those adverts about bowel cancer are an absolute joke. They couldn't care less.

@iseethembloom @taxguru I am so sorry to hear those utterly tragic stories and all that you had to endure with your loved ones. There are no words to describe how appalling it all is.

It makes my stomach churn thinking that it could easily be anyone of us next and there's absolutely nothing we can do to prevent or stop it from happening. We just need to sit there and watch it unfold before our very eyes.

@Daisy54

Her lack of empathy and care meant that I did not attempt to book another appointment for a further 6 months.

This it exactly what I mean. It is so disheartening and sucks the energy and will right out you when this is what you are up against.

It's really hard to pick yourself up again and continue the fight to receive the care you need.

@SpicyWater@EmeraldRoulette

Thank you for your kind words. I know I will never be the same again. My husband led a blameless life. He was a deeply honest, honourable person and he deserved so much better.

While I was waiting, a member of staff checking people in to the waiting system was chatting to another member of staff who was himself there for a blood test, and all their conversation was about how many staff had left in the last four months and how slow and difficult it is to recruit replacements.

A side note, The blood test results revealed v low vitamin D levels well outside the normal range. The GP practice sent a text telling me to buy some supplements .

As I spend every chance I get basking in the sun in very few clothes in a garden that isn’t overlooked (I’ve had so much sun this last six weeks, including a week in a North African country) I’m puzzled by this. I get loads of exposure to sunlight and Im currently tanned. So how can I possibly be lacking Vitamin D?

Is there any possibility of chatting about the reasons behind the deficiency with a medic? Not a chance. I’m not even going to attempt it.

So that’s another reason why the NHS doesn’t work well. There’s no attempt to get to the reasons - just a sticking plaster fix, ‘get supplements’.

I will do so, but I’d much rather address the reason.

@iseethembloom I am so sorry… that was absolutely heart breaking to read and it must be so hard to come to terms with losing your husband like that.

Yes, it's not so much whether it's possible to force an appointment out of them and eventually speak to someone who isn't dismissive if you jump through enough hoops. It's that you just give up trying.

Thank you. I’ll never come to terms with it, actually. I know if the issue had been diagnosed promptly he could have been saved. He was scared and in pain, but we were fobbed off by an uncaring nurse who repeatedly said it was just constipation. He was dying.

Our population has increased by about 10 million in the last 20 years. 10 million!!

No because that would involve giving money to someone with the actual skills and expertise to develop such an app, and as we all know they prefer to line the pocket’s of their friends and family members. You know…the plumbers who miraculously get contracts for providing oxygen equipment or the property developers who get contracts for providing ppe… that type of thing.

I was actually going to ask this exact same thing as op so I’m glad someone beat me to it - after yet another another another session of utter gaslighting from my gp (which followed gaslighting from two consultants and absolute misinformation about a medical condition - like actually just utterly untrue information which goes also against nhs guidelines) I’m feeling so exhausted. I genuinely needed to know if I’m the only one because I’ve been left feeling insane. Like surely there must be something wrong with me that I must imagine gaslighting and bad treatment from doctors because it is so rife. But clearly I’m not the only one. Years of it. I burst into tears in the last gp appointment. I actually know several doctors and one is so lovely and over orders tests - the rest spend their time bleating on about their ‘stupid patients’ and how ‘everyone should just be grateful and get what they’re given because we get it for free’. So over it.

@Devonshiregal

the rest spend their time bleating on about their ‘stupid patients’ and how ‘everyone should just be grateful and get what they’re given because we get it for free’.

Yup, it's "the attitude" that now prevails across the NHS which is hard to take. OH has had it when he's complained about the oncology dept repeatedly messing up his standard monthly chemotherapy prescription - he's had a few times when he's been told he's "lucky" to get the drugs for free because they cost a few hundred pounds per tablet, so them not being ready by the due dates, being in the wrong hospital awaiting pick up is basically something he should suck up!

The only response to MIL being killed by the NHS due to being ignored in A&E for 48 hours was that it was busy and the staff were stressed! Diddums!

We need a complete shift in culture and attitude within the NHS. They've had years of being applauded for being wonderful (the ridiculous opening ceremony of the London Olympics and then all the stupid pot banging during Covid), that they think they can get away with anything now and that Joe Public should "put up and shut up" however badly they're being treated. It really has to stop.

So true. So sorry that happened to your family and family and your husband’s illness too. So draining being an advocate too. I hope things will change and soon

I’m finding that the emergency care/A&E is great and very well organised, sadly not so much GPs surgery/local health care, especially chronic illnesses are very badly organised and lacking a lot of common sense.

Iv had three tumour operations in the past 18 months and my treatment has been excellent. I owe my life to these surgeons. My treatment has been quick and no waiting. Everything has been prompt. I have no complaints with cancer care whatsoever.
Recovering from my last surgery 8 weeks ago the amount of elderly stuck in hospital as they have no where to go is shocking. One women had been there for a year!! In the ward next to me, a lady threw a chair at the window, in the middle of the night. Mental health patient. I don’t know where she ended up. The poor nurses were ran off their feet. I felt for them.
Trying to get a gp appointment is another challenge. Stuck in a queue for ages. No appointments for weeks. Only two doctors on duty. It’s a disgrace. Something needs to be done.

I like our new e-consult system. You can check on the website which GP you want and which day they are on, and do the form on those days.

They triage and send you a text right away with a time they will call back, but there are no book ahead appts. It works for me but unsure about e.g. teachers, medical people I guess they would have to request a time to speak.

This is an issue I've come across recently to. I had bloods at the hospital and the GP couldn't see them so they had to order their own bloods. They where supposed to be an integrated care system. I really don't understand why different hospitals use different systems and they can't share results. It's a total waste of time and resources.

That sounds brutal. My advice - move to Australia if you can.

I’ve just spent a week in hospital here with quite a serious medical condition. The care and attention has been absolutely brilliant. Far exceeded my expectations. I’m now home with regular nurse visits to change my meds and multiple follow up specialist visits all booked for the next 3 months. All free. Everyone has my file and is aware of my plan/condition. All covered by Medicare.

I understand that you're probably just trying to be helpful but read the room.

Not a lot of people have the ability or means to run away from their problems. Running away solves nothing. Why should we when we are paying for a "similar" service back here in the UK? We should be given what we're entitled to.

Australia isn't somewhere I'd even like to visit on holiday never mind move to permanently.

I likely wouldn't even have a visa approved due to my health conditions anyway and all my healthcare would need to be privately funded.

The only response to MIL being killed by the NHS due to being ignored in A&E for 48 hours was that it was busy and the staff were stressed! Diddums!

We need a complete shift in culture and attitude within the NHS

Ever worked in AE, nope thought not, my DD, got punched in the face by a woman who was out of her head on drugs during her first shift on rotation, stayed the 8months the rotation took, got spat at, kicked and called disgusting names.

They don't have beds, no ward space to discharge patients too, they don't have qualified staff...little security, Dr's Radiographers etc 12/14 hour shifts, aggressive patients - its a miracle anyone stays in AE.

Our local AE is awful, fucking awful, 3rd world but people voted for this, they voted for Austerity and tax cuts, they voted for a party that historically has always run down the NHS and then they moan they cannot get an appointment or wait in AE for 24 hours... what on earth did you expect? NHS is far worse post Brexit than pre brexit and we voted for that too, all that pool of EU staff that no longer come her and/or went home.

Getting rid of a Diversity manager or 10, is not gong to magic up the billions needed to rebuild health care, neither is an insurance model going to conjure up 10s of 1000s of staff required to bring us up to European levels of healthcare.

Yeah, Australia doesn't admit immigrants with health issues so not a chance!

@mjf981

My advice - move to Australia if you can.

The better solution would be for politicians and NHS bosses to look at how it works in Australia and create a long term plan to bring their system to the UK to replace the failed NHS.

I don't care how busy/stressed they are. Ignoring and causing the death of a woman, leaving her on a trolley for 48 hours is simply not acceptable . Over that time there were several staff shift changeovers, other patients came and went. It's just complete indifference and lack of care when it spans so long, especially with the repeated lies about when treatment would start etc- a lot of it was just incompetence.