NHS=Negligent Health Service

Thanks for the reply. The second Dr I saw said that if it gets worse, or the antibiotic eye drops do not work to go to the local one. They have their own A&E dept.
The problem with that is that at least some some eye A&E's don't allow you to just go in, you need to be referred by either a doctor, an optician or go to normal A&E first.

My dad has had all sorts of problems with his eyes over the years and we've had to play the "not me" game with doctors and opticians before, with the doctors surgery going "oh you need to see an optician", the Optician going "you need to see a doctor" and the eye A&E going "we don't see people unless referred".
IIRC we ended up getting a number from the optician to the opticians specialist version of 111 who then gave the optician a reference to get him ASAP, the optician then IIRC referred him urgently to the hospital having spent about 3 hours with increasingly senior opticians at the practice looking at him (I think he said they fully did the tests 3 times). The local Spec Savers really earned a lot of good will with us that afternoon.

When he had an issue a few weeks back that the NHS site said was possibly signs of a detached retina we rang 111 who instructed us to go to the local normal A&E so they could look and see if he needed to be seen by the eye A&E at the other end of the hospital.

The ophthalmology and ophthalmic departments at a lot of hospitals are I think very severely understaffed, more so than most. In my dad's case he is meant to get 3 or 6 monthly checks but even before covid if the consultant said "I want to see you in 3 months" it was usually closer to 6 with the appointment coming often with only a week or so of notice*. The local optician was horrified last year when he realised my dad hadn't been seen by the specialist for ~3 years (it was meant to be a 3 month appointment, but covid hit about month 4), the GP did an urgent rereferral after we checked (again) to make sure that he hadn't missed an appointment or anything, and was due one last week (after a 5 month wait), which is now delayed to May.

I don't blame the NHS for this, as it's got massively worse in the last 10 years and the only thing that has changed has been a constant decrease in real terms funding and staffing which a decision by the PM, health secretary and the Treasury.
The actual staff are absolutely brilliant, the first incident I mentioned when he finally got to see someone, they looked at his eye saw the problem and basically did a minor op using laser surgery within minutes as the equipment was free and the specialist was trained in it so got the go ahead. Something that was both very welcome and sensible as it saved everyone a lot of time and meant he was able to see much better by the time he walked out (I basically had to walk him in, as it was affecting his "good" eye and he was more of less blind).


*With an absolute scramble to arrange transport, as I'm his normal driver and I was booked to be away that day, very fortunately it was a Saturday and I was able to get my sister to give up the day to take him (his appointments can take anything from 30 minutes from the appointment time, to 3 hours or more** if there is an emergency requiring surgery/treatment on the day). I learned to pack thermos's, snacks and a couple of good books etc 25 years ago..

**The record was about 6 hours, apparently they'd had a major emergency case come in via A&E requiring a lot of the staff.
 
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@Werewolf

Sorry your father had to go through that, it sounds like it was a difficult time especially as it affected his vision.
If this doesn't show signs of clearing up by tomorrow I'll let you know how the A&E here is!
cheers, he's fine now, but at the time it was very frustrating and worrying as everyone seemed to be saying "not us, try the other" when trying to get in to see someone.
 
I called our local GP practice for an emergency appointment for wife on Tuesday morning, dhe has COPD and was in hospital last year for nearly 6 months, she was having trouble breathing, not to bad for her, but her o2 sats were down to 80, dher had swollen anklesas well and did not want to go to hospital, they were in a critcal incident with waiting time of 12hrs, she normally had home vists. So receptiont wanted to know what was going on told her, she spoke to the wife and after a short conversation just said no appointments today try phoning tomorrow (Wedseday) . Anyhow wife went back to bed, Seemed alright during the day, had some lunch etc, then in the afternoon went to the toilet and collasped, checked her O2 sats and they were down to 50, phoned 999 1st responder there within 5 mins, with o2 which went stright on, ambulance turned up in 10mins and stright to hospital, I wernt as well in the ambulance.

When we got there, was around 20-25 ambulances waitng outside the A&E, has she was so poorly she was rushed stright in, has tests done stright away. Within half an hour testd results were back and the Doctor came ans saew me with the news that she was dying, the amount of CO2 in the blood was changing it to a acid which leads to organ failure, she askes what had happened during the day I explained about phoning the Doctors and telling her about the O2 sats in the morning and she said it might have made a difference if she had seen the GP has at 80 she would have been able to come back from that. Anyway my wife of 41 years passed away Wedsday evening.
I would like to praise the NHS, the Ambulance service, the doctors , nurses and staff at Derrifors for there help and work, they were were wonderfull.

And the GP surgery and the receptionist who is not medically trained who sits behind a desk making life and death decesions ?
 
I called our local GP practice for an emergency appointment for wife on Tuesday morning, dhe has COPD and was in hospital last year for nearly 6 months, she was having trouble breathing, not to bad for her, but her o2 sats were down to 80, dher had swollen anklesas well and did not want to go to hospital, they were in a critcal incident with waiting time of 12hrs, she normally had home vists. So receptiont wanted to know what was going on told her, she spoke to the wife and after a short conversation just said no appointments today try phoning tomorrow (Wedseday) . Anyhow wife went back to bed, Seemed alright during the day, had some lunch etc, then in the afternoon went to the toilet and collasped, checked her O2 sats and they were down to 50, phoned 999 1st responder there within 5 mins, with o2 which went stright on, ambulance turned up in 10mins and stright to hospital, I wernt as well in the ambulance.

When we got there, was around 20-25 ambulances waitng outside the A&E, has she was so poorly she was rushed stright in, has tests done stright away. Within half an hour testd results were back and the Doctor came ans saew me with the news that she was dying, the amount of CO2 in the blood was changing it to a acid which leads to organ failure, she askes what had happened during the day I explained about phoning the Doctors and telling her about the O2 sats in the morning and she said it might have made a difference if she had seen the GP has at 80 she would have been able to come back from that. Anyway my wife of 41 years passed away Wedsday evening.
I would like to praise the NHS, the Ambulance service, the doctors , nurses and staff at Derrifors for there help and work, they were were wonderfull.

And the GP surgery and the receptionist who is not medically trained who sits behind a desk making life and death decesions ?
I'm so sorry for your loss.
 
9 1/2 hours for a CT scan and results, my dad went in first thing on opening for a CT scan, about 3 people in front at 7am in the morning, I guess there was some from other areas due for one the night before and such. He had Ct scan at around 10:30am, then proceeded to wait until around 5pm to get results from doctor. This was a weekday.
 
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@bobuk i'm sorry for your loss

And the GP surgery and the receptionist who is not medically trained who sits behind a desk making life and death decesions ?
no, not usually.
does the 2min spiel to say that if anyone is calling about chest pain or breathlessness to put down the phone and call 999 no longer exist? (i've not called a gp recently so not sure)
 
9 1/2 hours for a CT scan and results, my dad went in first thing on opening for a CT scan, about 3 people in front at 7am in the morning, I guess there was some from other areas due for one the night before and such. He had Ct scan at around 10:30am, then proceeded to wait until around 5pm to get results from doctor. This was a weekday.
Massive national shortage of radiologists to report scans, not unusual at all sadly.
 
9 1/2 hours for a CT scan and results, my dad went in first thing on opening for a CT scan, about 3 people in front at 7am in the morning, I guess there was some from other areas due for one the night before and such. He had Ct scan at around 10:30am, then proceeded to wait until around 5pm to get results from doctor. This was a weekday.
I wait 3-4 weeks for my results. CT scans every 3 to 4 months.

Had some issues this week admitted straight away and here for a few day. NHS have saved my life through surgery and ongoing treatment. It's been a very positive experience for me.
 
9 1/2 hours for a CT scan and results, my dad went in first thing on opening for a CT scan, about 3 people in front at 7am in the morning, I guess there was some from other areas due for one the night before and such. He had Ct scan at around 10:30am, then proceeded to wait until around 5pm to get results from doctor. This was a weekday.
Usually their are different priorities. If you're waiting for a CT and a trauma comes in or a ICU pod requests a scan then they take priority over outpatients and 'non-urgent' ED/ward patients.

Some time ago a patient asked me "How long do you think I'll be?". All day it had been smooth sailing, patients were in and out in minutes (well, depending on the scan protocol), and I made the mistake of saying "Nah, you should be in and out in 10 minutes or so. Three hours later he was still waiting as we had a couple of Pod jobs and two helo. traumas come in, one requiring a WBCT (a full trauma scan). Now, I never say a thing when they ask..
 
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Our local surgery is an absolute joke. Appointments are always at least 2 weeks or more away, you can never get through in the morning when you are supposed to call for urgent appointments. Even if you call bang on 8am it always says you are in a queue of over 30 people...

I don't really see how i have a local GP anymore. What use is an appointment weeks and weeks away for a new condition/issue? I might be dead by then.
Mines similar but about a week for appointments.
I used to go in person early in the morning, but they don't allow it anymore. it's over the phone only.

The queues used to be about 20-30 people lined up outside the door ready for the place to open.

It's mental
 
Mines similar but about a week for appointments.
I used to go in person early in the morning, but they don't allow it anymore. it's over the phone only.

The queues used to be about 20-30 people lined up outside the door ready for the place to open.

It's mental
At ours, you have to do appointments online. Yet you can go in and make appointments with the nurse or hca almost straight away.
 
The problem with that is that at least some some eye A&E's don't allow you to just go in, you need to be referred by either a doctor, an optician or go to normal A&E first.

My dad has had all sorts of problems with his eyes over the years and we've had to play the "not me" game with doctors and opticians before, with the doctors surgery going "oh you need to see an optician", the Optician going "you need to see a doctor" and the eye A&E going "we don't see people unless referred".
IIRC we ended up getting a number from the optician to the opticians specialist version of 111 who then gave the optician a reference to get him ASAP, the optician then IIRC referred him urgently to the hospital having spent about 3 hours with increasingly senior opticians at the practice looking at him (I think he said they fully did the tests 3 times). The local Spec Savers really earned a lot of good will with us that afternoon.

When he had an issue a few weeks back that the NHS site said was possibly signs of a detached retina we rang 111 who instructed us to go to the local normal A&E so they could look and see if he needed to be seen by the eye A&E at the other end of the hospital.

The ophthalmology and ophthalmic departments at a lot of hospitals are I think very severely understaffed, more so than most. In my dad's case he is meant to get 3 or 6 monthly checks but even before covid if the consultant said "I want to see you in 3 months" it was usually closer to 6 with the appointment coming often with only a week or so of notice*. The local optician was horrified last year when he realised my dad hadn't been seen by the specialist for ~3 years (it was meant to be a 3 month appointment, but covid hit about month 4), the GP did an urgent rereferral after we checked (again) to make sure that he hadn't missed an appointment or anything, and was due one last week (after a 5 month wait), which is now delayed to May.

I don't blame the NHS for this, as it's got massively worse in the last 10 years and the only thing that has changed has been a constant decrease in real terms funding and staffing which a decision by the PM, health secretary and the Treasury.
The actual staff are absolutely brilliant, the first incident I mentioned when he finally got to see someone, they looked at his eye saw the problem and basically did a minor op using laser surgery within minutes as the equipment was free and the specialist was trained in it so got the go ahead. Something that was both very welcome and sensible as it saved everyone a lot of time and meant he was able to see much better by the time he walked out (I basically had to walk him in, as it was affecting his "good" eye and he was more of less blind).


*With an absolute scramble to arrange transport, as I'm his normal driver and I was booked to be away that day, very fortunately it was a Saturday and I was able to get my sister to give up the day to take him (his appointments can take anything from 30 minutes from the appointment time, to 3 hours or more** if there is an emergency requiring surgery/treatment on the day). I learned to pack thermos's, snacks and a couple of good books etc 25 years ago..

**The record was about 6 hours, apparently they'd had a major emergency case come in via A&E requiring a lot of the staff.
I had a similar experience and got referred by an optician too and the same you need to be referred you can't simply walk into in an eye hospital and get looked at. This is for specialist things like detached retina though an eye infection is more a GP kind of thing I imagine
 
Some time ago a patient asked me "How long do you think I'll be?". All day it had been smooth sailing, patients were in and out in minutes (well, depending on the scan protocol), and I made the mistake of saying "Nah, you should be in and out in 10 minutes or so. Three hours later he was still waiting as we had a couple of Pod jobs and two helo. traumas come in, one requiring a WBCT (a full trauma scan). Now, I never say a thing when they ask..

Worst delay I had was about 4 years ago when I took delivery of an OCUK Noblechair (still looks new and I live in it).
I was messing with an elastic strap on Boxing Day and it hit me in the eye, I honestly thought I'd lost it, I did put pictures on here.
I put a post on our UHNM Staff site and the Matron of the Eye Clinic replied and told me to get to the Eye Clinic at 9am.
I arrived and I was still there at 7.30pm :eek:
The Clinician just gave me some cream to put on it :)
 
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At ours, you have to do appointments online. Yet you can go in and make appointments with the nurse or hca almost straight away.
Yea, I needed help for someone recently so just directly texted the staff member and asked if she could help :D

She just books the appointment herself lol

I guess if your loaded you have the same access to GPs and other specialists , I bet they do home visits too, like GPs did once upon a time.
 
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I called our local GP practice for an emergency appointment for wife on Tuesday morning, dhe has COPD and was in hospital last year for nearly 6 months, she was having trouble breathing, not to bad for her, but her o2 sats were down to 80, dher had swollen anklesas well and did not want to go to hospital, they were in a critcal incident with waiting time of 12hrs, she normally had home vists. So receptiont wanted to know what was going on told her, she spoke to the wife and after a short conversation just said no appointments today try phoning tomorrow (Wedseday) . Anyhow wife went back to bed, Seemed alright during the day, had some lunch etc, then in the afternoon went to the toilet and collasped, checked her O2 sats and they were down to 50, phoned 999 1st responder there within 5 mins, with o2 which went stright on, ambulance turned up in 10mins and stright to hospital, I wernt as well in the ambulance.

When we got there, was around 20-25 ambulances waitng outside the A&E, has she was so poorly she was rushed stright in, has tests done stright away. Within half an hour testd results were back and the Doctor came ans saew me with the news that she was dying, the amount of CO2 in the blood was changing it to a acid which leads to organ failure, she askes what had happened during the day I explained about phoning the Doctors and telling her about the O2 sats in the morning and she said it might have made a difference if she had seen the GP has at 80 she would have been able to come back from that. Anyway my wife of 41 years passed away Wedsday evening.
I would like to praise the NHS, the Ambulance service, the doctors , nurses and staff at Derrifors for there help and work, they were were wonderfull.

And the GP surgery and the receptionist who is not medically trained who sits behind a desk making life and death decesions ?
So sorry for your loss dude!! The NHS in general is under a lot of pressure right now.
 
Let me preface by saying I've normally had good experiences with healthcare in this country. This is a minor rant mostly out of pure frustration at not being able to do anything but here goes:

My dad got diagnosed with colon cancer about a month ago, grim prognosis unfortunately (do your screenings chaps, if you wait until symptoms appear it's usually too late to cure). However everything was moving forward swiftly with regards to getting treatment started, so far so good - or as good as can be in this situation. Before starting treatment he had to have a stoma fitted, which he was absolutely dreading. This is where the problems begin. From what I can tell many of the nurses on the ward he's on are borderline negligent in everything they do. A few examples:

  • Told him he could eat whatever he wanted the day following the op, a cursory google shows this to be a terrible idea. How can a nurse not know this? This has resulted in horrendous 10/10 pain (he told me if he'd had a gun he would've shot himself)
  • He had to have a catheter post op, no doctors were available so the night nurse did it. She was visibly ****** off at having to do this. Apparently they're supposed to use some sort of numbing gel/lube stuff. They did not, with predictable outcome
  • He was supposed to have a morphine pump (anaesthetist said he'd be hooked up upon waking). He did not get a morphine pump or anything except paracetamol for quite some time
  • One night he was forced to press the help buzzer thing due to the extreme pain (again, no meds). The night nurse came in, replied 'oh' when he told her and walked off. He then waited 2 hours for pain medication to be supplied (after complaining again)
  • Eventually a doctor appeared and immediately put him on morphine every 4 hours. This literally never happens on schedule, it will often be 2-3 hours late even after he's prompted them several times
  • The stoma has not been working at all 6 days post op. We've been constantly questioning the nurses about this (along with the pain, growing nausea...again a quick google shows this is alarming) and mostly been totally ignored
  • The last couple of days he's been feeling more and more nauseous - again ignored by the nurses (and doctors for that matter). Today he's started violently throwing up green stuff, as if by magic a consultant appears to take it in hand and now finally it seems that it's being taken seriously, think he's going to end up back in emergency surgery
  • It's not as if the ward is understaffed. There are 4-5 staff sitting around chatting at the desk every single time I've been there. I saw a guy who was practically crying in agony calling for a nurse. They were all sat in earshot chatting away ignoring him
I get that healthcare professionals are generally treated like **** and overworked but surely this is not normal?
 
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Let me preface by saying I've normally had good experiences with healthcare in this country. This is a minor rant mostly out of pure frustration at not being able to do anything but here goes:

My dad got diagnosed with colon cancer about a month ago, grim prognosis unfortunately (do your screenings chaps, if you wait until symptoms appear it's usually too late to cure). However everything was moving forward swiftly with regards to getting treatment started, so far so good - or as good as can be in this situation. Before starting treatment he had to have a stoma fitted, which he was absolutely dreading. This is where the problems begin. From what I can tell many of the nurses on the ward he's on are borderline negligent in everything they do. A few examples:

  • Told him he could eat whatever he wanted the day following the op, a cursory google shows this to be a terrible idea. How can a nurse not know this? This has resulted in horrendous 10/10 pain (he told me if he'd had a gun he would've shot himself)
  • He had to have a catheter post op, no doctors were available so the night nurse did it. She was visibly ****** off at having to do this. Apparently they're supposed to use some sort of numbing gel/lube stuff. They did not, with predictable outcome
  • He was supposed to have a morphine pump (anaesthetist said he'd be hooked up upon waking). He did not get a morphine pump or anything except paracetamol for quite some time
  • One night he was forced to press the help buzzer thing due to the extreme pain (again, no meds). The night nurse came in, replied 'oh' when he told her and walked off. He then waited 2 hours for pain medication to be supplied (after complaining again)
  • Eventually a doctor appeared and immediately put him on morphine every 4 hours. This literally never happens on schedule, it will often be 2-3 hours late even after he's prompted them several times
  • The stoma has not been working at all 6 days post op. We've been constantly questioning the nurses about this (along with the pain, growing nausea...again a quick google shows this is alarming) and mostly been totally ignored
  • The last couple of days he's been feeling more and more nauseous - again ignored by the nurses (and doctors for that matter). Today he's started violently throwing up green stuff, as if by magic a consultant appears to take it in hand and now finally it seems that it's being taken seriously, think he's going to end up back in emergency surgery
  • It's not as if the ward is understaffed. There are 4-5 staff sitting around chatting at the desk every single time I've been there. I saw a guy who was practically crying in agony calling for a nurse. They were all sat in earshot chatting away ignoring him
I get that healthcare professionals are generally treated like **** and overworked but surely this is not normal?

This all needs to be itemised and put into a letter to Complaints.
Hopefully not but if anything happens in the future because of this then people like me look on DATIX and are able to see there is already a Complaint about it and helps your case.
 
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