nhs is a joke

Poppy9

If you are unhappy with your GP/Surgery you are free to change. If there is no doctor there all week I would change.

With regard to essential medication I thought your local Pharmasist could give you the medication without a prescription if they know you normally have this medication - like inhalers and the surgery is closed.

With regard to inhalers, which I know are essential and potentially life saving, I think you have to take responsibilty. My OH takes 3 everyday, after the first few months he knows how long they last and marks the calender to ring GP in good time for repeat prescription. That works well but he always forgets to collect them until he's just gone to work on a Friday evening and surgery shuts in 30 mins. I get the blooming phone call to go and collect his prescription for dispensing. I have even programmed the number of the local chemist into his phone who will collect prescription and deliver it to you if you give them 24 hours notice. Simple isn't it ring GP, put phone down, ring Pharmacy. Two days later (often 1) prescription brought to the house.

MissG_2

Poppy9 wrote:

If you are unhappy with your GP/Surgery you are free to change. If there is no doctor there all week I would change.

With regard to essential medication I thought your local Pharmasist could give you the medication without a prescription if they know you normally have this medication - like inhalers and the surgery is closed.

Simple isn't it ring GP, put phone down, ring Pharmacy. Two days later (often 1) prescription brought to the house.

Yes so simple to do but when you haven’t had it before it's slightly harder to get without a signed prescription from your GP.
I would change but none are taking new patients on, I have tried.

oldandhappy

It could be so much better for sure..I got annoyed when I was given an appointment to see a Consultant the same week as I had seen the doctor about a problem...only to dicover they had given me a Private apointment by mistake...when I sorted this error out I had to wait 6 months to see the same Consultant...He was very good when I eventually saw him...but....that is how it is and it should not be.

Poppy9

If you contact your local health authority they will find you a new GP.

margaretclare

Peakma wrote:

I was talking to an old lady I know the other day,she's 75 and needs a knee replacement.Shes having to chase up to get an appoimtment to see the consultant(or who ever it is they see first) just to get the apointment to have it assesed,then she when she finnaly gets that appointment she'l have at least an 8 week wait for the op after that.Sh'es living in pain,and I find it appauling people of this age have to wait so long,when they just dont have time to wait.I think it's disgusting how old people are treated in this country.If its not bad enough that thier bodies are growing old and giving up and they have to face the frightening concept of being operated on,they have the mental torture of waiting and not knowing how long for.When I think of what that generation did for us in the war ,and this is the thanks they get in thier old age,it's shocking.

Someone of 75 now is unlikely to have done much in 'the war' (I assume you mean World War Two?) although she may have been evacuated etc. She'd have been a schoolchild in those years. I was born in 1935.

It's not perfect. I eventually saw my consultant via a private consultation because every time I went to OPD to see him it seemed to be impossible to marry up my X-rays with my case file. 'We don't keep X-rays in this building, we send for them when the patient arrives in OPD'.

However, there is no point in stressing about these administrative glitches. You just have to be assertive and quietly-insistent. When I saw my consultant in his private rooms last May he assured me that the waiting-time would be 'before November'. In fact the date was changed twice - first time was a delay of 5 weeks and then another of 1 week. Eventually I had the essential surgery in the first week of December. I am very happy with the care and treatment I received once I actually got into hospital.

Margaret Clare

Quincy_3

The NHS is not a Joke.

Go to America and get a bandage for £300 dollars, now thats a joke.

Its understaffed and under a major reshuffle and yes it has its problems I admit but it is certainly not a joke.

Thriftylady

I think everyone has NHS stories good and bad, but the money just isn't available to fund it. Part of this is mismanagement and waste, part of it is due to patients abusing the system (I bet no one 'forgets to turn up' for an appointment that they have had to pay for), and part of it is just because to fund all healthcare for the entire population would probably mean our entire earnings being taken off us in tax (although it sort of feels like they already are!).

I'm not against an insurance based healthcare system in theory, it seems to work well in some countries (not the USA, some of the things I hear about healthcare there are truly shocking) but my big fear would be what happens if you have, for example, a family history of a particular illness. Would you be refused cover by your insurer for costs arising out of the very illness that you are most likely to need treated for? Does anyone know how this works in other countries who operate an insurance based system?

---lee---

oldandhappy wrote:

It could be so much better for sure..I got annoyed when I was given an appointment to see a Consultant the same week as I had seen the doctor about a problem...only to dicover they had given me a Private apointment by mistake...when I sorted this error out I had to wait 6 months to see the same Consultant...He was very good when I eventually saw him...but....that is how it is and it should not be.

I think that's where the problem lies - having to wait so long to see a consultant.

I saw my GP a few days ago about my knee which has been bothering me for months, but has recently given me a lot of pain and trouble. He said it would require surgery and he would refer me to see an Orthopaedic surgeon. He also told me that instead of seeing the surgeon as I should, the hospital would instead refer me to a physiotherapist so that they could meet their targets, that is I would be seen in 6 weeks. The physiotherapist would then tell me that I would need to see a consultant, so I would go onto the list again and wait another 6 weeks (3 months in total) before even being examined.

I rang the hospital today to book the appointment I was given an appointment to see the physiotherapist in 6 weeks exactly as my GP had told me. When I questioned it, I was told that's how the system works. At 14:30. I rang BUPA and saw a consultant at the private hospital around the corner from me at 16:00. The appointment cost me about £100 but at least I’ve had a diagnosis and I am now on the NHS waiting list for the operation.

Bagpuss1973

pickle wrote:

I'd just go straight to the emergency ward and ask them to do it! Having an inhaler is not something you can do without. I know this as I know someone who died from an asthma attack (in a hospital waiting room I might add!). Don't settle for can't, it's negligence if they fail to provide it. It really makes my blood boil when I hear stories like this. It is plain incompetence.

Sorry but this post got my goat! You can hardly say it is incompetence when it is the patient who has not bothered to renew their own prescription in time! The NHS staff have to work to a system, their hands are tied and they cannot just give out medication like sweets, in an obvious emergency the patient would have been nebulised. People do have to take some responsibility at some point, this culture of blame some, sue someone is getting rather out of hand!

And don't you think A&E have enough to do without dealing with people who "forgot" to renew their inhaler??:mad: (and for the record I am an asthmatic)

mrcow

pickle wrote:

I'd just go straight to the emergency ward and ask them to do it! Having an inhaler is not something you can do without. I know this as I know someone who died from an asthma attack (in a hospital waiting room I might add!). Don't settle for can't, it's negligence if they fail to provide it. It really makes my blood boil when I hear stories like this. It is plain incompetence.

What rot!

The OP doesn't have asthma, they have a cough which they waited three weeks before seeing a doctor for......hardly a casualty situation.

No wonder the NHS is under so much stress with attitudes like this