Private medical treatment vs. the NHS - our recent experiences

 Viv's eye has been a problem ever since the failure of Bedford Hospital to treat her tumour promptly. She has a full right-side facial palsy, meaning she cannot blink or close her right eye. the cornea gets very dry and her vision is at risk if she or I don't drops or gels to the eye quite frequently.

We have tried to get an appointment with the NHS to have her looked at for some kind of treatment to reduce the risks to this eye - their are a number of options, from weights (to help it close) to stitches (to reduce the opening) and minor cuts (to alter the shape of the eyelids). 

All we could get from the NHS was a phone appointment. How well can a doctor assess your eyes over the phone? 

She was put on the lust for a 'f2f' as they call it, but we have heard nothing in three months.

A consultant we know said she should treat it as a matter of urgency, so we looked into our options to go private. Moorfields in London gave her an appointment at a couple of week's notice, and we went along a couple of weeks ago and saw two consultants and an optometrist, who, in total, spent over an hour with her. A number of options were suggested, one involving returning this week to have some trial weights fitted.

The whole experience shows just how poor the NHS is; everything was properly explained, we had the information we needed to give informed consent, and we left feeling optimistic. It did, however, cost the small sum of £550.

A couple of days later we were called to see if we could change the time of the appointment this week. It wasn't a secretary calling us, or an admin clerk, but the consultant herself. (On one occasion we have even not been told about a change to an NHS appointment until we were on the bus on the way to it).   

It's a world away from the NHS.

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Then, on Tuesday of last week, it was back down to earth. Viv had a call from a consultant at a hospital she has hardly ever been to about her pancreas. Sha hasn't had any pancreatic / liver problems in recent years, and only got referred to this consultant when she was discharged by the consultant at the Lister after follow-ups from her experiences seven years ago with a carcinoid of the appendix: scans they had been taking of her abdomen had showed some pseudocysts in her pancreas. 

The pseudocysts didn't seem to grow very much over time, we were told; nevertheless, sh has been phoned every three months over the last year and asked about her health.

We're tired of this: we had to clear the whole afternoon for a ten minute call (because, although it was arranged for 2.20, the hospital timing is erratic, one call having been an hour early, and the others up to two hours late). it seems to be a job creation scheme for doctors: find something on a scan that looks 'interesting' and then keep phoning patients to find out that, er, there isn't much wrong with them that can be attributed to what you've seen.

In fact, it's a bit like the covidshambles: frighten the patient - tell them there is a risk ('you might have a problem at some point over the next ten years as a result of your pancreas'), tell them that to minimise the risk they must do certain things ('absolutely no alcohol and no smoking'), and ignore the fact that, actually, the patient has a right to make up their own mind about risks, and that this patient has survived cancer, been sent home twice to die because NHS doctors couldn't be arsed to read a scan properly, and might just want to enjoy life.

Is this sort of bullying what people want of the NHS? Is this worth all the hysteria and clapping? Why do the elite (whoever they are) want to control everyone, keep them alive as long as possible and let them have as little fun as possible?:

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Since this encounter with the NHS two further things have happened.

1. Viv received a text saying she has a letter from the Royal Free. She doesn't have a smartphone so can't see it. We're waiting to see whether a hardcopy arrives. What use is it communicating with people in this way?

2. Viv's had another private appointment at Moorfields where an eyelid weight was fitted. For the first time in four years she was able to close and blink her right eye; her vision was immediately improved. This, stick-on, weight option was not offered to her by the NHS. Further, the surgeon is hoping to arrange for her to have a permanent weight fixed to her eye before the end of this month (at a cost that would pay for a reasonable second-hand car).

Is the NHS evolving into a 'life-saving' service, at the cost of improvement to quality of life? Matt Hancock recently boasted that he hadn't declared details of procurement contracts because he and his team were too busy saving lives; does he not think of quality of life?