That is just terrible and my heart goes out to you, your wife and family. Sadly although the NHS has done a stellar job against Covid other services are going down the pan and GP surgeries seem to be so afraid of catching Covid they refuse to see patients.
We have gone through a similar experience with my wifes sister. Over a year ago she started complaining about a severe pain in her lower skull where the spine joins, like someone sticking a red hot poker in at accompanied with lot's of pressure. She phoned her GP surgery who would only give her a telephone consultation and the doctor prescribed painkillers and anti inflammatories.
A month on and there was no improvement, in fact she was worse so she phoned the GP surgery again and yet again could only get a telephone consultation. He gave her even stronger painkillers. Two weeks later and she was still worsening. She phoned the GP surgery and got the same response, telephone consultation and the strongest painkillers he could prescribe. By this time she was struggling to eat, could hardly move her head and couldn't sleep. She went to A&E in tears hoping to get a scan and to be examined for the first time. Fat chance. They reckoned she had a trapped nerve and to go back to her GP. What a load of crap but that's NHS Grampian for you. I was thinking by now that she had a disk collapsed as her symptoms were similar to mine when I had a disk collapse in my neck. She kept pushing for a scan but her GP who still hadn't even examined her wouldn't refer her and kept adding more and more pills.
March last year we had a family funeral and we picked up my sister in law on the way. We were shocked by how much weight she had lost. She could barely move and spent the day being pushed around in a wheelchair. We persuaded her to try A&E again but that got her nowhere and they referred her back to her GP.
April 24th last year she was found collapsed in the street one evening. The ambulance was called and she was taken to ARI (Aberdeen Royal Infirmary). They performed tests on her blood but she wasn't in a fit state for a scan. She was slipping in and out of consciousness and when she was awake she was highly confused. She had a scan a month later and they found a lump at the base of her brain and it couldn't be operated on. She spent several months in hospital yet they did no further investigation and only treated her for pain. She was transferred to a nursing home on December 14th.
On December 30th they did another scan and finally told us what was wrong. She had stage three brain cancer and there was no way to remove it due to it's size and position. Maybe if they actually did something sooner they could have. They started chemo which made her even worse and was constantly slipping in and out of consciousness. All this time we have not been allowed to see her as her selfish idiot sons took both visiting slots and wouldn't give one up so that my wife could see her sister. She had another scan at the end of January to find out how the cancer had progressed and found that she only had a matter of days, maybe a couple of weeks. They started reducing the chemo and Maggie eventually passed away on February 4th. We weren't allowed to see her since she first went into hospital back in April last year.
Her funeral was the 9th February and it was by far the worst funeral I have ever been to and she deserved far better. Her sons arranged it and they must have gone for the cheapest cremation package they could find because there was a 10 minute non-religious ceremony followed by everyone (15 people as that was the maximum allowed for the package they chose) following the coffin out to the hearst which then drove off. Apparently it would drive around the block and wait for everyone to go as the cremation wasn't until the middle of the next week. That left everyone in the car park briefly chatting before each made their way home. No wake, no flowers, nothing. It was awful. A couple of weeks later my wife phoned the son (her nephew) who was sorting Maggie's affairs out to ask for a keepsake or some photo's only to be told that everything was sold to pay for the funeral (we offered to pay) or binned and nothing was left. My wife got off the phone and burst into tears and it took ages for me to calm her down. What a terrible thing to do, they didn't even have the decency to ask if she would like anything. Her car alone would have more than covered the cost of the funeral. The best we sould manage was to copy Maggies Facebook photo's before they nuked that as well.
I can't help but feel that If her GP did the job he is paid to do that Maggie may still be with us and personally I think he should be struck off. Sadly this seems to be normal these days as we can't even get a appointment at our GP surgery either and they insist on telephone consultations. Even on the rare occassion you do get a appointment to see the nurse the reception staff makes things difficult. I had a appointment with the nurse two weeks ago and you have to press a call button under a video camera to speak with reception before they will let you in. I told them I had a appointment with the nurse and the receptionist said it was a telephone consultation to which I replied it's a bit difficult to have a blood sample taken over the phone!! She finally let me in, the waiting room was empty. I am still waiting for the results.