After a recent visit to a "doctor" which to say the least was underwhelming, I asked my wife when she last walked out of a doctors consultation and felt that the doctor had listened to her, understood the symptoms and then provided a good diagnosis. After quite some thinking she said "years"
After many years reading posts on this site, many contributors have had the same many , many times before eventually finding the "right" doctor. Certainly, within the non-emergency Head injury treatment and diagnosis we seem to have very few good quality practitioners.
Interesting that I can buy something in shop, meal in a restaurant, product online and are invited to give feed back - both negative and positive. However, nothing like that for the medical profession.
The doctor that saw my wife, seemed to be there more for reducing the waiting and improving statistics more than addressing genuine health concerns. It seems that we are more concerned now with numbers of people seen rather than the number of successful or satisfactory outcomes
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sospan
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Hi Sospan, sorry to hear your wife is finding this out. It has existed for years and the only way I found to get what was needed was to go on the offensive and stand and fight the medical system. I made quite a few mistakes doing this but eventually learned how to fight and get what was required. It was the same with the DWP and the legal system.
I tried to sue my original GP practice and had a really good case except for one point, I did not make an official complain to the GP practice, otherwise it would have been a slam dunk. So my advice to you would be to make an official complain, nicely but sternly, to the GP practice and see what happens. If you get nowhere move to another practice. This seems to be a serious step and the new GP should respond correctly. Then if the original GP has made a mistake sue the ass off them.
The problem is the haven't necessarily made a mistake but not given good service.
A bit like being in a restaurant and the meal isn't any good. If you were to a take a restuarant to court for serving you a chewy steak, the defence would be we offered a steak on the menu, we delivered you a steak, your opinion it was chewy and the restaurant serves many steaks and in our opinion it was suitable.
Much like doctors, if they haven't done anything technically wrong or as far as being negligent
Yeah my local gp has no desire to explore or understand mental health issues around delivery of their service, my growing impatience and factors affecting my mental health.... originating from tbi..... any excuse and they shut u up
Been down the legal consultation route too, was expecting an honest appraisal. You may be in for a shock. The role of the medical expert in a legal case is to act independently for the court. Their opinion is mainly based on the medical records, so if your experiences with the GP etc is not good then it reflects in the medical records. If you have absolute proof in the records ie a positive CT or MRi scan then it will not necessarily be ok. If there are lesions in the scan then there is the issue of 'well these could have already been there'. If your scans are negative then the opinion will be psychological issues. If there is a history of any mental health or psychological problems in the past, including the menopause, then the opinion will be that the symptoms are due to that. Somehow you have to prove it. To get the best honest outcome you need to fight the medical system, NHS, to ensure you get the best options relating to the injury.
If you did not complain about your steak and get a new one you can get your money back and go to a good steakhouse for a better one.
I agree with charlie5540. I'm retired from the NHS, and have seen the erosion of the NHS over the years.
Private practitioners suck the life and money from the NHS.
When I trained, I had a placement in a private hospital. I was surprised to see some of the NHS dr's doing locum shifts.
This was a surgical placement, and although on face value everything seemed lovely, I did seem to spend as much time ticking cost sheets as much as caring for patients.
What was glaring, was when things went wrong, the amount of patients that required emergency transfer to the NHS.
The NHS didn't profit from correcting the mess the private hospital had caused, but yet the private hospital profited from taking on NHS procedures. Seems a little one sided.
One of the worst things the NHS itself promotes - the "BANK Nurses" my futire daughter in law mother is classic example of the abuse that exists. She manipulates her rota to allow her to return to the same hospital where she is based. So that on the weekend she can get many times her normal day rate for doing less than her normal role.
When my wife was a nurse in the 80's it was bad then and much worse now - our health board spend £1,800.000 on bank nurses last year
I was a RN, as I moved up the band's, I had less insensitive to do extra shifts. If a shift requires a band 2 HCA/NA, it didn't matter what your substantive band was, you only got paid for the required level, despite this you were still expected to work at your substantive level.
Was there fiddles? Yes but only if management allowed it.
Bank nursing was cheaper than agency, and national policy didn't allow overtime. Nursing banks were originally run at a trust level, then it was nationalised. The whole nurse bank was then privatised. Instead of paying staff the flat rate, as a privatised concern, commission was added, therefore, instead of saving the NHS money it cost more, and because of national policy, it was a closed market.
Because nurses get paid bank via payroll, very few were aware that their bank contracts were TUPED to the private company.
Why is bank paid via payroll? It was made illegal under the Employment Act to employ the same person under two separate contracts.
There are still nursing agencies, and these do pay higher rates plus commission. The NHS can only employ an agency nurse if the nursing bank cannot supply suitable staff, so most agencies cover specialist nurses, i.e. ITU, nurses employed in secure units etc.
If your daughter in law's mother is manipulating the rota, then either she is in a position that can authorise changes to the rota or her manager is turning a blind eye. It is wrong to manipulate the rota for personal gain, in effect defrauding the NHS.
I'm out of the NHS now, but I personally think that they should be paid overtime.
Before I had to retire, I took a temporary promotion on the promise that if the post became substantive, it would be up graded by a band.
I made a success of the position, it was made substantive, the re banding never came. Oh well, we live and learn.
On GPs surgery notice board should be promotion of Carers Hub think past year changed to PeoplePlus, might be different name in your locality, basically the community organisation that carries out carers assessment. You can become member for your own GP surgery, they only meet up frequently to hear what people think of GP practise etc.
This is a wider issue with GP but you could support own community and make a difference from your own experuence.
Totally understand where your coming from personally and since Husbands TBI. Infact when he has issues, they phone southmead for advice, even on bloods, just no specialist GP surgery to take ownership of Neurological/Brain Injury Health conditions and now with Covid its like everything dismissed. My husband still waiting on ENT app from 9wks ago as skull fractures sitting on nerve cause tinnitus.
My wife had a mini stroke and she has waited 4 weeks for a blood test and afterwards they expect to have the results back to the GP in 2 - 3 weeks. Glad it is urgent.
The problem we have, is that despite it being a rural area it isn't appealing to good or ambitious doctors. instead we get lots of locums with very, very poor English which just adds to the issues even more so in Wales
Why is everything such a struggle. We are finding it hard to get our symptoms and feelings across to the medical profession and because we haven't got major visible problems we are dismissed. Occasionally we may have a glimmer of hope when we see a new doctor but trying to get back to see them is a stressful exhausting experience. I don't know the answer to this but at least we have the help and suggestions from others on here.
Sorry for the level of medical care you are not receiving. From my perspective it all boils down to providing the services which have the highest profitability, damn the health benefits. If it isn't highly profitable minimize it. We are basically customers. Unfortunately the medical systems are not setup to provide the best care for all conditions, only for the most profitable. So, it is up to us to figure out how to get the care we actually need. Doesn't matter if it is fair or ethical, it just is. Unless we are willing to do whatever it takes to get the care needed in the medical system, then we need to do whatever we need to to get the care we need in some other ways.
I believe the problem is down to profit but not perhaps as people see it. Most Doctors are on a 10 year plan, 5 years to get their qualifications, 2 years as a junior and then a few more years gaining experience. When the doctores are in their mid to late 30's the good ones leave the NHS or stay but develop a private practive. You can't really blame them benefiting from their talents after 10 years effort.
That leaves the aveage ones behind. However, because their is a shortage of doctors in the NHS, they have no option but to keep the average and below par doctors on the payroll. Whilst this causes frustration for the patients, it is worse for the up and coming junior doctors, the better ones only want to train under the top people, so the avergage juniors get trained by the average senior doctors and so the quality contines drops .
Yes, I agree with that. In the US - I'm referring the doctors both in private practice or otherwise. I believe the insurance companies are really the ones driving who gets what and kind of forces the doctors to comply with what the insurance companies dictate.
Doctors are a pain ain’t they ? I go in and they just want to give me more painkillers and anti depressant crap. I’m really looking for some kinda therapy that works. Any ideas what’s good ?
Yep they always treat the symptoms not the cause. Have some tablets and off you go is the standard approach.
The greatest therapy I found was to do practical things with my hands. Post injury my hand I co-ordination was so poor. I couldn't bang a nail into wood with a hammer. I practiced and practiced until I could do it. Whilst it improved my co-ordination, it also reduced my noise sensitivity and build my stamina up as well.
I then went on to make more things, this improved my ability to plan and sequence things. Although we had some hilarious moments along the way measuring things and getting things spectacularly wrong.
Doing anything practical DIY, Gardening, cooking etc. especially outdoors is so beneficial mentally and physically.
In the pre-covid days there were quite a few schemes and volunteer opportunities where you could help out on projects but virtually all these have shut down now. I know quite a few people who go litter picking just to make their daily walk more intersting. A couple change what they pick up each trip bottles, cans, paper etc.
That’s exactly what I feel. Doing something different sounds great, there are no flea markets so I’ve started trying to paint models for my grandkids and even pebbles. Takes ages for me but it’s really therapeutic anyway
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mother is classic example of the abuse that exists. She manipulates her rota to allow her to return to the same hospital where she is based. So that on the weekend she can get many times her normal day rate for doing less than her normal role.
The good, the bad and the pure evil (go update good news at last !!!!!!!!)
Doctors Responses and Fear 
Informing unhelpful doctors
back to the doctors today at 2pm
