Gynaecology waiting lists double, leaving women in pain

[IwantToRetire]

Waiting lists for gynaecology appointments across the UK have more than doubled since February 2020, BBC research reveals.

Records show around three-quarters of a million (755,046) women's health appointments are waiting to happen - up from 360,400 just before the pandemic.

This would suggest around 630,000 people - at the very least - are on the list to be seen for problems that range from fibroids and endometriosis to incontinence and menopause care.

Health ministers across the UK say they are working on plans to improve the situation, but health leaders say that women are being let down.

Article continues at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyvg2157mvo

I was going to ask how this compares with other areas of health but saw this later in the article:

"Gynaecology is the only elective speciality that solely treats women and has one of the worst waiting lists across the UK.

"This reflects the persistent lack of priority given to women and women’s health, " Dr Thakar says.

"Women are suffering. We know it is affecting their mental health. They are not able to go to work, they are not able to socialize."

Dr Thakar adds that if the women had been treated earlier, their conditions wouldn't have progressed as much, and they would continue to contribute to society

Waiting for a way forward
Voices of women and healthcare professionals at the centre of the gynaecology care crisis
https://www.rcog.org.uk/about-us/campaigning-and-opinions/addressing-waiting-times-gynaecology/waiting-for-a-way-forward/

This is the report referred to in the article.

Note how, despite it being clearly stated an area of health soley concerning women, the BBC says the report "looks at the impact on people waiting for care".

Might help if women wernt made to wait months for a hysteroscopy when they request a GA. But if you take paracetamol or ibuprofen they can do it immediately. Effectively punishing women for wanting a low pain/pain free procedure. I wonder how many on that waiting list are waiting for this procedure so they can have it under GA.
Come on NHS Tell the full story!

Because it won't kill you, just debilitate you they just don't care. Women's health is so underfunded with lack of research

And yet its women who are leaned on to provide social care unpaid when same NHS wants to free up a bed.

Well, I'd like to know more.

For example, have the numbers of gynaecologists working in the NHS changed significantly in the same period?

Have the referral criteria changed?

Is there a sort of positive here - that GPs are finally referring more women to gynaecology where we would have been dismissed previously? Even though the outcome of that is longer waits because of the number waiting to be seen by the same or fewer specialists?

There's more to a story than the number of people on any waiting list and reporting the numbers tells us nothing at all.

I'll say it yet again - Isn't it funny how women's health services are being run down, I wonder if it's purposefully?

That this is the case, in general, doesn't come as a surprise tbh. The actual figures are shocking though. And the individual stories, even more so. Anna's story in particular is, off the scale, appalling. I was genuinely shocked t the extent of her suffering.

Did you read any of the source material.

If you think it isn't credible because other factors aren't referred to, why dont you email them and ask for further info?

And here was me thinking this was a conversation.

Feel free to talk to yourself and shut down the debate, eh?

We're relatively privileged in Liverpool, as the city has the country's only specialist NHS Women's Trust - but I do know that before Covid ( having been in then for a colposcopy) if you had a priority referral you'd wait less than two weeks for the procedure; since then it has been somewhere between 4 and 7 weeks ( I was in again this year)

Two weeks ago I was ticked off that statistic with a single telephone appointment, where I was told to try peppermint tea for pain and to eat beetroot to help the anaemia I have from blood loss. And that the adhesion between my uterus and bowel that a private MRI scan showed is probably just a ‘normal’ adhesion and not a sign of endometriosis. Waiting so long only to be discharged back to my GP has broken part of me.

It’s not just the waiting lists, it’s what happens when you’re actually seen by someone. Or in my case, spoken to over the phone and then removed from the service.

I used to coach a sport. About 25 years ago I had a promising teenage girl who could have been very successful. She had natural talent and great determination. But she began missing practice sessions and told me that sometimes she was in such pain that daily life was hard, let alone competitive sport. From what she told me, I suggested that she see her GP and get checked for endometriosis. Little came of that appointment, or further ones, and she gave up the sport. But eight years later, she phoned me and told me she finally had a diagnosis - of endometriosis.
I still feel annoyed that something so obvious wasn’t picked up, that she had to give up a sport she loved, that she suffered for so long and that as a result the condition caused far more damage than if it had been caught earlier.
And it’s appalling that the situation seems to be getting worse rather than better.

What a bizarre response.

Unless someone on this thread happens to be part of collecting statistics for the NHS none of us could answer your question.

Assuming you are genuinely interested in women's health provision, and the answers to your questions aren't in the published material, it seems obvious you would then want to follow it up by asking the authors of the report why this aspect is not covered.

That is shocking.

Is there anyway you cant make a direct complaint, talk to your GP again, and say how inadequate this telephone consultation was in terms of determining endometriosis. The GP needs to know this before making referrals to them.

Let alone being told to try peppermint tea for pain and to eat beetroot to help the anaemia. Sounds like some alternative medicine centre.

I had something like this for a totally different condition, and although a bit reluctant when I spoke to my GP (or rather the GP available) they were concerned enough that I could hear over the phone them checking on their online system to see if there was another specialist.

Sometimes it feels that only people who are really healthy have the strength to fight through the hopeless NHS system.

Do you have a PALS system you could use to help you?

I know four women who have had gynae surgery in the last couple of years - all went private. The local trust has a 19 month wait for ‘routine’ outpatient appointments, at which point you are put on a 34 month wait for inpatient treatment. Urgent, high priority patients (not cancer) have to wait six months for outpatient and a further six months for inpatient treatment.

I’m in Liverpool. I was referred to gynae (by Gynae A&E at the Women’s) because I needed a hysterectomy (post menopausal and passing clots literally the size of my foot, multiple times a week). I was told that the wait to see a specialist was two years, then I’d be looking at a further 12 months wait for surgery. I ended up going private with the same Consultant who specialises in endo/adenomyosis and told me that mine was the worst he’d ever seen. It’s shocking and terrifying that most women would be forced to wait 3 years for urgent surgery if they can’t afford to pay.

Are you sure you even saw a doctor and not a physician associate?

Though a doctor told me to take red clover for menopause instead of HRT.

Gynaecology is a joke. The only treatment offered is the magic mirena coil. And if you can't tolerate it, you can wait six months to have it removed.

I'm waiting for menopause before I expect to be treated seriously. I've got ado and my uterus is very thickened almost five times than what it should be. Not that anyone in nhs gynaecology has bothered to take a look!

Quote from the NHS web site:

Herbal remedies such as red clover contain plant hormones that can act in a similar way to oestrogen, while black cohosh is believed to balance oestrogen and progestogen levels. These may help with some menopause symptoms but this is not supported by scientific evidence.

https://www.nhs.uk/medicines/hormone-replacement-therapy-hrt/alternatives-to-hormone-replacement-therapy-hrt/herbal-remedies-and-complementary-medicines-for-menopause-symptoms/

I'm sorry to hear that.....I wasn't aware that waits for some procedures at 'the women's' could be so long.

They tried that with my daughter who told them she wanted a second opinion and wasn't going to be removed from the list. We went to her 2nd appt armed with the NICE guidelines which says if symptoms are present even if a scan has been negative for endo the next step is a laparoscopy to check. They agreed to a laparoscopy.

2 year wait in total for the laparoscopy which was actually negative for endo. So yes mirena is the next choice.....but dd refusing as has read the horror stories about a 6 month wait if she doesn't get on with it. Drs just say it'll be fine and that women can't "not get on with it" as the hormones are kept localised unlike the pill. So dismissing all the women who don't get on with it!

That's complaint-worthy, if you have the energy.

Not just the total lack of examination or medical treatment, but even by the standards of unscientific quackery it's poor advice - beetroot isn't especially high in iron.

I've got a severe prolapse and thickened lining of the uterus (picked uo on CT scan for something else) Been waiting to see a gyno since last March.

I put in a complaint recently (not gynae related) and got a letter back saying due to pressures they would be unable to respond within the 20 days deadline for complaints. Three months later I got a phone call asking if I would drop the complaint, and another four months after that I got a phone call saying I was absolutely right but they were under too much pressure to do anything.