GP reluctant atti

[jaybrody]

asked my GP, if he could contact my pain management surgeon to follow up on a procedure that I having waiting for.for past one year. I had no luck getting hold of my pain physician and gathered that since he communicated with my Primary doctor, he could contact him on behalf as concerned doctor for his patient. He has done this before at my request for different reason. This time he is reluctant to, and advised me to keep trying. I found that very odd and out of character. By the way I am waiting for a spinal cord stimulation procedure and it is more than a year waiting for this procedure. The pain is unbearable and on too much medication and hoping this will limit amount of medication I take. Do you think I am overthinking my primary doctors reaction or I should push my own agenda with pain physician.

[RAYJAYC]

Definitely chase it up yourself; I've been 'lost' in the system before and if I hadn't gotten in contact with the department involved, I would of never been seen!! Patients do slip through the net sometimes so it's worth doing your own digging!

[Blakejess]

Speak to pals complaint s line. The hospital yr physician is based at tell how bad yr quality of life is and u need this chased up. It's always been a great help to me, maybe just maybe they've lost yr notes.

[cyberbarn]

Do you have the name of the secretary of the surgeon? Sometimes it is better for the patient to contact the secretary and deal with them directly. They are the ones that control the patient lists for their surgeons and will know exactly where on the list your name is. If your GP follows it up it will be added to a huge pile of paperwork. GPs have so much extra paper work these days that it can add four hours to their 8 hours of seeing patients.

Additionally the GP is likely to ask their medical secretaries to follow it up. Some of them are brilliant, but some of them aren't so good. All they will do is contact the surgeon's secretary anyway, so if you do it yourself you can have that little conversation that might include, 'do you have a cancellation list, could I go on it?' type things!

If you get no joy from that you could contact your local PALS. They are embedded right in the hospitals and are a good first step to really finding out what is going on when you have been waiting that long.

And if the waiting lists are too long, you can always make a complaint to your local Healthwatch too. All these things are things that you can do to make sure that you get the best care, but the GP can't really do it for you.

I hope that helps.

[jaybrody]

Thank you for positive feedback, I will spoken to secretary before and I get feeling she is holding on to something and won't be phased by my concerns. I may have to get hold of PALS to assist me. The wait just ridiculous

[kiwitaramerlin]

Definetely i am agree with you, you are not overthinking your primary doctors reaction there is no excuse for GP just to remind the request IF they have done it for you. It is all about the patient health.

Good luck!

[mikejames]

You need to push for a response !! I too am waiting for spinal cord stimulator procedure

and its been a over a year. My meds are Pregabalin 225ml x2 and Tramadol x4 a day

not much I consider, in view of my cronic pain.