I wonder if additionally to the difficulty of actually getting an appointment, many patients are also very fed up with being ignored, gaslighted or patronised. Doctors might be horrified that we go online, import medications and self treat but they can hardly be surprised.
Written by
Sparklingsunshine
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
The ability to reply to this post has been turned off.
Well aint that the truth! So much has been written since waveylines put up her post which pretty well covers all that is being said in the newspaper. Thankfully it's a New Year and hopefully will be a better one for so many people but at the end of the day so much needs to be changed within the NHS - money is not the problem but mis-management is. I don't want to start the New Year feeling depressed and frustrated so I wish everyone on this forum, admin as well as other contributors for all their experiences which have helped so many.
Unfortunately politicians fail to really check out the ‘smaller’ details. Headlines only. They don’t seem to realise that just ‘enforcing’ a seven day wait for a GP appointment will address very little. Our complaints are about quality really. A seven day wait, which is still ridiculous, will improve nothing. However if it’s achieved they will be able to crow about it. Sigh! What a world?
Absolutely! In addition, having to live with this condition has probably led us to educate ourselves on it to the point where we, undoubtedly, know more about it than your average doctor… and they don’t like having that pointed out to them, no matter how diplomatically we try! This in turn leads to the ignorance, gaslighting and patronisation… and lack of help when we need it.
it’s not the doctors’ fault, but this and previous governments’ underfunding of the NHS. Our NHS spending per inhabitant is at least 30% lower than in other European countries. Senior MPs have shares in private health companies and received donations from them, so it is clear where it is all heading. Mercifully, organisations such as Every Doctor and others are fighting to keep NHS public. Every Doctor had prepared a map of privatisation in the UK and has data showing which MPs received donations and have shares. They keep lobbying politicians to reverse the current trend and gathered evidence that privatisation does not produce good results for patients and the country, we can see what privatisation has done in other sectors of our economy.
The difference between this country and other European ones is that there is no NHS providing free care ‘cradle to grave’ in Europe. You have to pay into a medical fund… similar to the American insurance system but not half as commercialised or expensive.
The NHS is a precious commodity in this country but it needs a drastic overhaul in how it provides care. It has been abused and used as a political football by parties of all colours for too long and it needs to be taken out of the control of government. I’m not sure how that can be achieved without some form of privatisation but something has to be done!
We need to pay more tax, call it medical fund, if you like, but what we should not be doing is lining the pockets of politicians and private health companies that, in a lot of cases, do not do a good job. Privatisation is not a solution-haven’t we got enough evidence of what it does to our natural, environment, transport and utilities ? ,
My dad contributed to the Ziekenfonds in Holland (where I was born) through deductions taken from his pay every month and it covered the whole family of British wife and 3 kids. He never missed it and we got ‘free care’ when we needed it.
My dad contributed to the Ziekenfonds in Holland (where I was born) through deductions taken from his pay every month and it covered the whole family of British wife and 3 kids. He never missed it and we got ‘free care’ when we needed it.
Privatisation should actually involve patients voice as customers who at the moment don't have any say at all in how their money is spent, what they should be able to get for it and cannot hold anybody accountable for what is being (or more often not being) done to safeguard their interests. I would be happy to pay into a medical fund if I knew I am a stakeholder with influence rather than just being treated as a nuisance by many medical professionals under the current system.
I love American healthcare because I can see a doctor anytime without a wait, and can fire him or her without notice and go to another one, premiums are high but that's okay to not wait or get good care. I wouldn't want socialize medicine for nothing.
There's an awful lot of inequality in the US healthcare system, including millions without insurance. What do they do? Go away and suffer.
As with so many things it shouldn't be based on ability to pay. I find it morally abhorrent that people have to choose between eating and paying for medical insurance personally. Its a two tier system which penalises poorer people.
We do pay for healthcare in the UK. With our taxes. Insurance based medicine is just a different model. Personally I wouldnt want US style healthcare here, but I would look at countries like France or Germany and see how they do things.
There's an awful lot of inequality in the uks health system these days. It's a two tier system. Those that can pay or have Bupa and do very well. Private medicine is booming in this country with the full wack of private service now including cancer treatment. It's why the people who lead our country are not bothered by the state of the NHS as they don't use it.... They all go private and for education too.
I 100% agree but at its inception the NHas was supposed to treat everyone the same. The fact its been allowed to decay to the point that people are choosing or having to go private, is very sad.
I totally agree Sparklingsunshine. The fact that striking doctors are blamed for the demise of the NHS is outrageous. There seems to be no or little incentive for our government to change things around tbh.....But then again on their watch we have people starving on benifits, low income famikes/people unable to make ends meet, food banks in abundance who can't meet the need but never existed before, a crisis in housing leaving an ever increasing number of people and children homeless.
The poor get poorer and more join their ranks whilst the rich just get richer and lead ever increasing luxurious lifestyles. We have gone back to a Victorian Era.......
The last thing I would want to see here is the American system of healthcare! Being charged tens of thousands of £s just to have a baby (including a charge for the nurse to hand it to you!) would be several steps too far! I dread to think how someone like me on just a state pension would be able to afford the care my declining health would need or even the, inevitably rising, insurance premiums that I would have to pay… No thank you!
Got a feeling it was Tony Blair who first turned doctor’s and dental surgeries into businesses. That was when the rot set in - a bit like opening Pandora’s box really.
As for MPs! My first comments on them were probably libellous so I scrapped them and started again but basically as I see it, become an MP, make the ‘right connections’, get fingers in as many pies as they can, claim expenses for things their constituents pay for for themselves and when they are flung out after however long they get a nice big fat pension that most of us can only dream of plus a big fat golden handshake.
It really is awful and it is ‘cross party’ so it is never like.y to change. As for the Honours system and the House of Lords - well what can you say about that? At £300 a day or whatever it is now just for turning up - another nice little earner. I can’t imagine any of that will ever change - meanwhile the NHS - well as we all know, it’s not doing very well is it?
It was, I think it was John Major two years after Thatcher left who introduced PFI which turned out to be a disaster for the NHS but this article by Polly Toynbee explains what Tony did when he came to power, neither side comes out of their handling of the NHS very well.
I can’t understand why the NHS appears to waste so much money and doesn’t use its bargaining power to get good deals on purchasing.
There have been poor decisions made over the years by all parties and at the rate we’re going we’ll end up with nothing.
Turned out Tony Blair was really an undercover Tory. He continued to nail down stupid targets etc started by the Tories, in the NHS.
PFS was held in contempt by many in the building business, even although many have made millions (maybe even billions) from it and we the tax payers are left with the payments.
Cross party? I thought that might be a good thing. However I can be terribly naive about stuff that really ought to have ‘goodwill’ underpinning it. I always think other people think like me. Thanks for giving me something else to think about!
I agree with what you say, mainly. However I can’t agree with “it’s not the doctors’ fault”. In living memory their hours have been drastically cut, their pensions are wonderful, allowing them (encouraging them even) to work shorter hours and they are in the top 4% of the population in terms of pay. However there is little evidence of doctors taking the patient’s interests to heart. Many doctors apparently suffering Long Covid are being abandoned by their profession and finding out for themselves what it is like being a patient. Even they can’t trust their own profession, so it’s no wonder we can’t either.
In their favour it’s not easy working in a hierarchy that seems to pay no attention whatsoever to their staff. Pecking order must be maintained and that’s a good thing when there is integrity in the organisation. However integrity is now in short supply. Many of the problems of that nature are internal and entirely unaffected by any government of the day.
It used to annoy me to death going to NHS meetings, so much time wasted and nothing improved from the few actual decisions made. Also when I became self employed, sitting listening to pointless issues (or at least issues not properly addressed) whilst they were being very well paid to waste the time and indeed be paid for being away from paid ‘work’. It’s a bubble and they don’t know how the real world operates.
If it was working as it should, there would be little to complain about.
Another glaring problem which is partly the doctors' fault is the fact that they happily resigned from practicing the art of medicine it used to be, to become glorified pill pushers and being dictated by the Big Pharma in what they learn, what the objective of their work should be and stopped looking at the wider perspective of the human body, the environment it exists in and even talking to other specialists within the field of medicine or learning how their disciplines overlap.
This is an excellent point. Looking at other ‘jobs’ and giving away my age. As a civil servant and wishing to serve the people of my country (I know, don’t laugh), myself and a number of colleagues worried a lot about what was called ‘fast trackers’ being brought in to the service in the 1980s. These were recent graduates and were treated very specially. They had no experience whatsoever of the ‘job’. They (like junior doctors) had to have ‘internships’ in many departments so they could get the feel of the Civil Service. However they never learned any of the real core of the jobs. They were allowed/encouraged to make changes, produce ideas and all this contributed to their status and promotion/careers. This is about when the ticky box solution started within the service. It/they were a complete nightmare for ‘ordinary’ staff as they made no contribution to effectiveness. In fact it made all things decidedly worse. Emphasis on change for change sake. No-one seemed to be in the slightest bit bothered about the encroaching chaos, especially the ‘fast trackers’ because they were gone before the s..t hit the fan.
Off course change should be embraced but it should be properly evaluated before making it wholesale. The NHS was actually quite late embarking on this route compared to both the private sector and civil servants perse. They are right in the middle of this utter chaos but with very real impact. It’s such a huge organisation and requiring excellent CEOs not failed private sector CEOs which some definitely are.
I sympathise , having met some awkward and insensitive doctors but overall they are not that well paid compared to other professions and that’s why they are on strike. Underfunding of the NHS creates huge workloads and this leads to poor performance. We would not have problems if politicians did not start meddling and making things worse. They keep telling us that NHS wastes money and quite large sums that they are supposedly spending on healthcare but these total sums are meaningless because we do not spend enough per capita- the main static that should be quoted, for comparison with other countries . Proper funding per capita would resolve a lot of problems.
Bean counting chews up a lot of resource these days. I work for a government department where more time is spent calculating the cost of delivering a service than actually delivering that service. I suspect it’s true for most goverment departments. The more Whitehall asks for efficiency savings, the more bean counters are recruited, further squeezing the budget for hiring people who are actually capable of delivering the service.
It's also increasingly run by beauricrats who create more and more systems that intrude more and more on treatment/diagnosis which prevent many doctors from independent thought /action.... Ie they are put in straight jackets over what they can and cannot do on the NHS. Everything is set in protocols and no one can deviate from them.... Not even the top consultants.This means access to effective treatment has become more and more restricted..... It's a massive part of the NHS grinding away largely out of sight from us patients limiting and controlling what happens at the chalk face ever more. It's only when you have a health problem that you hit the wall with a bang and find the invisible barrier. It's now a complete myth that we have access to full health care on the NHS. We don't it's shrunk beyond belief. And yes it's collapsing because the stress on those working in it is intolerable and they exit it go private or go abroad.
We already have a very strong two tier system. The truth is if you want effective health treatment you need increasingly to go private. Private has become a very large factor of our treatment these days whether your are paying directly yohrself or the NHS is paying for it on your behalf. A lof of the NHS is already run privately....
This is so true. Your comments are very valuable. We could try involving the media in the story of privatisation as well in the appalling lack of knowledge of how to tread thyroid disorder. I succeeded in getting in touch with Laura Kuenssberg over the misreporting on the funding of the NHS and she agreed that funding per capita should be quoted and said the issue will be discussed by the BBC in the future. Getting hold of a good investigative journalist to report on the issues thyroid patients have would also be a good move. I also wrote to Victoria Derbyshire but she is surrounded by a huge team of advisors and I just got a thank you response . However, persisting in this actions should bring results. Programs like ‘morning live’ on the BBC could be targeted, featuring some extreme cases of poor thyroid treatments and being forced to use private routes .This is then can be broadened to discussing NHS privatisation in general. Politicians are paying attention to the media more than to anything else. I have started this action myself.
The fear of litigation is behind a lot of it, including the meetings. To protect themselves from being sued for more than their department’s annual budget. So every i must be dotted, every t crossed.
When my father was seriously ill last summer we called paramedics twice. They spent longer writing up their notes—the all-important audit trail—than they spent with him.
Many GPs are on their knees. The apparently “good” pay isn’t attracting staff or helping with retention. There’s now so much admin there’s precious little time for delivering care.
So I’m not so sure it’s all about Big Pharma calling the shots. The segmentation of care is just as much about where to lay blame should things go wrong as it is about working out how long each patient should have per appointment. Bureaucracy gone mad, litigation culture, an unrealistic expectation that all ills should be cured.
Oh and by the way—pensions for those just starting out in their medical careers are no longer wonderful. The public purse can no longer afford them.
Who’d be a doctor in the UK these days? Many train here and immediately move abroad on completion of their studies. What does that tell us?
It tells us that perhaps the government should be doing something make sure if they do that they have to pay back what it has cost the country to train them.
My point was more that they are often utterly disillusioned by working for the NHS by the end of their training and want to go somewhere they feel more fulfilled, with less chance of burnout.
Malcolm Kendrick has been doing a very interesting series of blogs on how the state of the NHS is being undermined by doctors having to do more and more compiling of useless reports and paperwork that takes time away from patients. Patients end up not being people anymore but rather a series of reports that must be filled out…
It’s probably why AI is becoming popular now… punch in certain parameters and Tadaaa! Out pops a tailored plan for dealing with said parameters…
The NHS needs to return to basics. If you want to be an NHS consultant, the BE one, not one who spends most of his/her time doing private care, and let’s get rid of ‘agency’ nurses… if you want to work in the NHS then work to the same wages as NHS nurses.
Government needs to look after the staff better and that means paying proper wages so the professions become attractive again. A happy workforce will always work better than a resentful one and the people who will benefit from that are the patients…
We know this is the truth everywhere. I have previously mentioned Civil servants in virtually every department plus NHS, Local government etc. We have heard big complaints from the Police Force too. We don’t hear quite so much from the private sector where many of these ‘new ideas’ come from (completely different animal) but with the government, many employees feel a personal, almost vocational involvement in their jobs (off course everywhere there are leg swingers) and naturally this commitment and goodwill eventually turns into resentment by not being properly respected.
I don’t think it’s always down to money. In fact money has its own ‘evil’ if it becomes the sole measure of any human being.
I think it’s about proper appropriate support, enough staff and mutual respect. As far as I can see this is now tentative, if at all present, in workforces everywhere. People do need respect. Unfortunately striking no longer acquires respect. Quite the opposite.
I know. It's nuts. I have HS. Massive acne spots under my arms. It's self diagnosed because I haven't seen an NHS GP for over a year. My thyroid tests I pay for from medichecks and email to my private endocrinologist. I've just started a month of doxycycline for my HS but I bought that on line because I couldn't wait 6 months for a human GP to look at it and I'd prefer my self diagnosis to their phone diagnosis
Same here regarding thyroid. I need a private endo. And from that I buy T3 in some form or another, currently NDT which I source from a London lab but have to buy a phone consult now and then to keep that prescription coming. (not that onerous at all that one). And I pay for all my own blood tests. Do you know that Monitor My Health tests are cheaper than Medichecks? If all you need are FT4, FT3 and TSH? And they are run out of an NHS lab in Exeter so if you show a result to your GP and they say they don't use private tests you can chuck that one at them!
I did Fancypants and my results still can't be registered on my NHS file because I paid for them!! 🫣🙄I'm saying private is here already. My treatment when I was sent by ambulance to hospital recently, twice was scarily neglectful and was discharged from hospital ward in the same state I went in from a specialist heart ward, it turned out to be a complication of heart surgery not picked up or even looked at. Not just in a&e but up on a ward. Luckily nothing major I think but should've been picked up months ago.... Unnecessary suffering. .
I've just watched a friend's daughter in her early 30s go from being a healthy woman to being in palitive care in a space of 6-8 months and she still does not have a diagnosis but is dying. Why? Because of beurocracy, protocols, long waits. Doctors can see she is exceedingly ill but are unable to access the tools they need and now they are able to she is too ill and unstable to be able to have the interventions. They've just managed to do the biospy and she's on a driver with daily nursing sent out and still she will have to wait another 4-6weeks for the results!! We all know it will be too late. She will leave four young children without a Mum. The family have gone to Centre Parks and the hospital have sent nursing staff out there daily to maintain her drug treatment through her driver. You cannot tell me this is good news. She's not even diagnosed yet!!
My builder two years ago died of cancer, they 'found' it a month before he died. Been going to the GP for 18months who did nothing. At hospital level when he finally got there he was riddled, source never found and in the last few days he finally got palliative care. He was 50.
What we are experiencing with having to buy tests seek private is but the edge of a huge chasm. We are being sold a lie I'm afraid. A mirage if you would like. Yes there are still nuggets in the NHS but they are ever increasingly hard to find and those golden nuggets have their hands tied behind their backs.
Can this situation be rescued? I don't know. I have grave doubts. I think it's already been asset stripped. I do know though that as a nation if we don't all stand up and shout and push our politicians very hard NOW it WILL disappear.
Hi, I think this is much too narrow a view. It supposes that when one gets a gp appointment it will solve the problem or at least be helpful. I am one of the so called lucky ones. I have usually managed to get a gp appointment within a week, sometimes the same day when necessary. The problem for me is that it has not always been helpful. After waiting 20 months to see a respiratory specialist, I was asked if I had had a lung capacity test. I said no and added very strongly that my problem was not with my lungs but my nose and synuses. I was told, "it only takes a couple of weeks for the test and it will iliminate something." I waited nine weeks!! Test was very normal. I was told consultant would call me back soon to discuss result. I was actually discharged - without seeing the consultant! The respiratory problem finally cleared up eighteen months later!
I've been trying for almost three years to sort problems from a misplaced covid injection. I was given several incorrect diagnosis by the gp - it can't possibly be a misplaced injection, it must be due to something else. I waited 18 months to see a rheumatologist inspite of knowing they could not help. The gp refusing to refer me to neurology. I eventually cancelled the rheumatology appointment. Finally when pain got too bad, I paid £250 to see a neurologist back in September. He insisted on treating me on the NHS. Great but I'm still waiting. What he did not tell me was that he was on holiday for two weeks in October - I did not know there are only two weeks in October! Then he didn't work in December. So I am finally getting back to him later this week.
How can the NHS ever work when it's consultants only work one in every three months? I know this isn't an isolated case as my husband has been having the same problem with a spinal surgeon!!
For me, it's not about ploughing more and more money into the NHS,. It's time everyone realised that is not working. We need less woke and unqualified and untrained managers. We need a tightening up on rules governing gps and consultants. If they can't put in the hours then they are not doing their job!! If gps are not seeing patients in a reasonable time, then they are not doing their job either. They also need a decent computer system because their appointment system is a joke.
My consultant thoraisic surgeon works himself to the bone..... At my follow up he asked for two weeks instead of the usual 6 weeks, because he had concerns - what I/he got was an appointment in 7 weeks.... Anyway he was grey with exhaustion when I saw him. He looked terrible. He wasn't sure exactly what was going on but beyond an ECG and x ray he wasn't allowed to do a heart tracker for a few months more as that was the protocol set so he 'hoped' things would settle. Well they have now finally but only because the problem has finally been identified nearly 4 months post surgery and my heart is finally slowing down now I'm not in pain and the effects of a very nasty contrary indicated drug with a very long life span indeed are starting to loose their grip!! And after the three day heart tracker done in December the results of which I shall find out at my February appointment. This surgeon is the top surgeon in the UK for this particular heart op..... so the very best that can be had.... On the NHS is a very different deal to private. Even he who is extremely highly regarded in his field can do nothing outside the protocols the NHS hold him to which are nothing to do with good health care. He says the NHS is unsafe. I agree. I hope I never have to use its secondary care level ever again....and the primary care I receive is already shot. I'm reliant on Dr Google. If you live in an area where you still get good care you are very lucky person indeed.... not the norm though.
At this moment in time I have nothing but praise for a doctor at my surgery.
I got a very new scab on my head when I scratched an itch recently, it hadn’t dried up by the following day so I called the surgery just to ask if the nurse would be able to take a look when I went for my blood test the next morning. I was told she couldn’t but to go in right away for a photo to be taken, which I did. 10 minutes after I got home from that I had a call from the doctor asking me to go back. A week later after applying an antibiotic cream (which did no good) I had a return appointment. The doctor immediately referred me to the dermatology dept. Less than 2 weeks after that at the hospital the dermatologist told me that it was a squamous cell carcinoma. He is going to remove it within the next month.
I can’t believe this has happened. I don’t like being in the sun, I can’t bear the heat, I hide under the parasol in the garden and if it’s hot I stay in the house. We don’t even take holidays.
All this has happened very quickly, just from the 8th of December when it started.
I think for urgent or emergency care, ie life or death then the NHS can hold its own, in 2020, just before covid hit I was experiencing unexplained breathlessness and swallowing difficulties.
I can't fault the care I received, blood tests, chest X Ray, CT scan and put on the urgent waiting list for an endoscopy. However this was only because my GP placed me on the cancer pathway, even though he was pretty sure it wasn't cancer.
He explained that if he didnt I would go to the back of the queue and I would be waiting months. This was pre covid when things weren't great in the NHS, they are a lot worse now. Happily during investigations I was flagged up as hypothyroid and started on treatment. My symptoms weren't serious but I'm grateful I got checked out.
My point is that for challenging, chronic or non life threatening conditions the NHS isnt good. The care is cursory, often inadequate or disinterested.
I wish you every good fortune for your treatment going forward and I agree that the NHS can be marvellous for life saving treatment, but unfortunately in my experience and that of many others, its far from ideal when it comes to more mundane conditions.
Good luck with the removal. You must be feeling shocked.
Some do get good service. I'm pretty sure I would have a similar result at my surgery if needed. But what I complain about is the lack of knowledge to think outside the box or to even treat hypothyroidism properly. I have to self-treat as Levothyroxine doesn't work for me. However, they know I do this and are fine with it and do all that my private endo asks them to do.
I recently had a friend who passed out in the street in front of me. I managed to get her to my home and checked her BP. It was 190/100. Rang GP for advice. Receptionist checked with GP and came back to me to say that she couldn’t have an emergency appointment and that if I was worried, I should call an ambulance! I took
Her to the walk-in centre and they did all sorts of tests in her but said she needed blood tests and to take her to A&E. They checked everything again, did bloods and said she was fit to drive! She was feeling faint whilst waiting! She kept collapsing and being taken to A&E and they kept saying she was OK. She collapsed again in in a supermarket in another area. Luckily for her there were 2 off duty doctors in the queue. They called an ambulance and said she’d had a seizure (she hadn’t) they said that so the ambulance would come. She was hospitalised for a week, whilst tests were done but they knew she needed a pacemaker. She kept fainting whilst sitting in the hospital bed. She ended up having a pacemaker fitted about a month after the first episode! I am so furious at my friend’s treatment by my surgery they were useless when she was taken in after fainting at a doctor friend’s house. I rarely use them now, preferring the walk-in centre where you at least see someone instead of wasting time with a telephone appointment. The care she received in the last hospital was exemplary. The first 2 times in A&E she didn’t even see a doctor because they were on strike! She saw nurse practitioners. The NHS is usually great in an emergency but sadly not that good for routine stuff - using a one side fits all approach! Sadly we really have to be our own advocates, fighting for what we know we need.
By default, I pulled up the series called "Bodies" filmed in 2004 by Jed Mercurio (of Line of Duty, etc.). Basically, despite the NHS claiming to want to act on Whistleblowers' reports, they simply ousted them/got rid, whatever it took, including lies - in order to enable incompetent consultants to continue killing patients or causing them unnecessary damage!
The cynic in me asks: Isn't DIY treatment on the government's agenda - to save them our money - which then funds "Enquiries" about the Govn't's own ongoing cXXX-Ups?
Boris claimed that leaving the EU would free up billions for the NHS. The NHS ought to be rolling in money. What happened? I am not a Brit so have no idea but he spun a good yarn. Seems an awful lot of the population fell for it.
They did! Your right there!!What Boris did not say was all the money that came from the EU would also stop too.... So we would be worse off not better. Another of his lies..... There's been many...... And there are still some sectors in his party who want to bring him back. Just shows the corruption that exists!
What about people who work hard but have a low paying job ? Working hard doesnt equal success, there are people who work 2 or 3 jobs but still cant afford health insurance. And what of those too ill or disabled to work?
The NHS is far from perfect but when it was set up in 1947 it was done to get rid of the haves and the have nots. It was set up to give everyone equal access to healthcare irrespective to ability to pay or income.
The US has some of the worst health outcomes of any developed nation. In 2021 it ranked 11th out of 11 when compared with other high income countries like Norway, the Netherlands or Australia. It was behind the UK FYI
Ironically Cuba, a communist country has one of the best healthcare provisions in the world.
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.