Where's the Compassion?

Trish9556

Hi all

Having had a increase in my hip pain levels over the last few weeks I eventually spoke to a GP this morning asking for help as I'm just about at my wits end and can't cope with the sense of feeling like a zombie on all the pills I'm on, no quality of life and the amount of pain, to which she more or less implied I would have to live the rest of my life in pain, taking painkillers and there was nothing she could do as I'm also under the care of the local MSK team and this is my life from now on with no quality.

She could 'boost my gapapentin' which I've been on for about 10 years and which I don't think is working any more, this would take me from 4 x 300 mg capsules to 6 x 300 mg capsules which I think is the maximum I can have. She could also prescribe me with oramorph or morphine. I have agreed to increase the gabapentin but I am positive it wont work from previous experience.

She also said that I can do some sitting down upper body exercises with weights etc despite me telling her that I can barely sit down with the pain and the arthritis in my wrists is made worse by the constant use of crutches.

She also implied that the pain clinic would be the next step if my planned injection on 22nd isn't successful - I don't hold much hope for the injection based on past experience or for the pain clinic which I've also been referred to 4 times and basically said just take these pills, they would work and thank you very much and bye bye. The pills didn't work (various pills along the lines of amitryptiline). I can't take anti inflammatories so what I can take is limited.

Once upon a type your GP listened and helped and had compassion, this was missing in abundance this morning and was blatantly obvious when she said just phone your physio, it's not my job!!!

Are all GP's like this or just this one? I have logged a call with my MSK physio could call me back as I'm not due to see her again until June and hopefully she might be more compassionate and helpful.

Interested to know if this is the standard level of GP care these days or if I'm just unlucky.

Love n hugs

Trish xx

Fran54

Hi @Trish9556

sorry to hear that you are in so much pain. I hope that you here from your MSK Physio as soon as possible and that they can help you. My experience recently with my Doctor is that he just wants to palm you off onto someone else. I had x-rays done over two months ago and after waiting over a month for the results, my Doctor rang and told me I had Osteoarthritis in my right knee ( I knew this already ) and in my right hip. When I asked for further details was told he would refer me back to MSK. This was over 3 weeks ago and today I have had to chase up my Doctor's to find out what was happening and was told the results had not been sent to MSK! I am starting to get so frustrated with the lack of joined up care of being fobbed off and also the worsening of my symptoms. Perhaps we are the unlucky ones but the Doctor was only on the phone to me for about 1 minute whereas when seen face to face they were allotted about 10 minutes for each appt. Why should we have to keep chasing these people up to get anything done and to help with our quality of life. It would be interesting to hear other people's points of view.

Take care and chin up. x

Trish9556

Thanks @Fran54

I think what upset me most this week was back in January just after my hips first started causing problems for me my husband wanted to take me away to our favourite place for a few days to cheer me up. I refused saying I didnt want to go and not be able to enjoy myself due to the pain.

I had been feeling a bit better so we went this week and spent two sleepless nights in a hotel room in tears due to the pain - I was so upset because all sense of enjoyment had been pulled from under me.

I had spoken to that GP years ago when she was listed as my GP - now I remember why I changed my designated GP. Chances of speaking to my GP these days are the same as finding unicorn poo!

Still waiting to see if I get a call but could have to wait for that a bit depending on how busy she is.

I hope you get to speak to somebody who will help you too.

Love n hugs

Trish xx

Lorraine_24

Hi @Trish9556 , you're definitely not alone on this one, there's no compassion no nothing , just fobbing people off, unable to help ,passing buck around and been told to put up with it, I personally feel so let down by my gp that as soon as im able I will be changing to somewhere else in the hope of finding a gp that will listen and try to help but don't know if they exist anymore

Trish9556

Thank you @Lorraine_24

It is such a shame - I have been at my surgery for 40 years and have witnessed a sharp decline over the last 10 years and it's such a shame.

The surgery was deemed to be 'failing' but the real problemm was it wasn't getting the support it needed and now we are run by an organisation that has Patient and Practice in the name and since then it has been absolutely awful. We now only have 2 permanent GP's, down from 8, and all the rest are locum so you never speak to the same person twice and no chance of getting any sort of relationship that we all used to enjoy with our Doctors. I hope we get a return to that level of service but not holding my breath. We have considered changing our surgery but honestly, they're all as bad as each other round here 😥

Love n hugs

Trish xx

TLee

I have had the same run-around. Did physical therapy, even though the PT started out saying that, based on the severity of the OA, I probably would not benefit a whole lot. True. Did the shot & it didn't help at all, but they want me to go for another. Why? Took an anti-depressant that also works for pain. Thought it was a miracle for a month or so, then it stopped helping. Apparently it is necessary to keep increasing the dosage--not something I am willing to do. I had one very young, very fit orthopedic resident literally shrug his shoulders and tell me, "Yeah, well, you have arthritis...", almost as if to say, "What do you expect me to do about it?" In fact, that is the attitude that I see most often. I have thought of changing doctors, or at least becoming more demanding about my care, but honestly I think I have given up. I feel too old & tired to go through hip surgery, even if I could convince someone to do it. I also know what it feels like to miss out on enjoying life to the fullest, but I may have to accept that this is where I am. I do have good days when I can still do some things I want to do, so I guess I'll just keep limping along.

frogmorton

I did gabapentin 3600mg Trish many years ago I hope it helps you it never did me but on the upside was the only meds which didn't cause me any side effects.

Ask to go to the pain clinic just do it they might have some ideas That GP clearly hasn't.

MSK!!!! It's a glorified physio!!! All of it just gatekeeping, that's all they are, all of the 'services' these days. So the lists for actual surgeries, which might just help people, don't get any longer!

Take care ((()))

Toni x

Trish9556

Thank @TLee and @frogmorton

I did the antidepressant route years ago and that failed abysmally, a bit like gabapentine. I'll pacify the gp for a bit and increase that but not looking to go up to 3600. I'm of the opinion that if something doesn't work there's no sense in keep upping the dose until it does. It's like the jab, it's on their checklist so you have to at least try it before you can pass go.

Many years ago a GP almost killed me by just increasing my meds and I vowed I'd never let a hp do that again. I think if it been a face to face appointment I would've dropped my crutches to the floor, burst into tests then hobbled out

Trish xx

Ck1

Hi Trish9556,

In my opinion I feel sadly since COVID the medical profession as a collective has changed dramatically. The waiting lists for anything have doubled, doctors are mainly phone appointments only, you're forever playing pass the buck, no one seems to really listen and you seem to be forever chasing people up. I'm not sure if the true reason for this is due to staff shortages or just being overstretched and stressed.

Sadly though I feel those with long term medical conditions aren't really getting the support they need anymore. I could rant more but I'll save that for my next medical appointment for my son..... always like to keep them on their toes😆.

Arthuritis

@Trish9556 @frogmorton I am afraid you are both absolutely correct, I have found the same in my experience and unfortunately I cannot blame the GPs, because I understand why. They are doing a job that as humans, they simply do not have the capacity to deliver on the expectations on. That kind of infinite compassion and empathy, to tirelessly and relentlessly research every case as if it was the only one, to scour the ends of all human knowledge, not just one doctor’s life time, and after seeing thousands of patients in pain, to see each one with full compassion without being jaded, without arrogance or an ego to massage, requires an A.I. with those superhuman capabilities to never tire or become desensitised.

The medical profession is not unaware of this limitation and have been researching exactly this.

The University of San Diego reported in JAMA (American BMJ) the following:

While comparing doctor and AI responses to over 200 medical questions, a panel of medical specialists discovered that around 80% of the A.I.’s solutions were more nuanced, accurate, and comprehensive than those provided by doctors. It wasn't a slouch, even in terms of bedside manner. Less than 5% of doctoral remarks were rated as "empathetic" or "very empathetic," but AI replies had a 45% empathy rating. In a cross-sectional research employing 195 randomly selected patient queries from a social media forum, a panel of trained healthcare professionals assessed doctors' and chatbots' responses to patients' questions submitted on a public social media forum. The quality and empathetic scores of the A.I. responses were significantly higher than those of the doctor responses.

While we might like to think we are somehow better in medicine than the EU or US, the reality is we are far behind, the main benefit being it’s free in the UK & EU at the point of delivery but part from that humans are the same everywhere, we just have the arrogance to think that a discovery not made here is somehow less valid. Covid showed the UK NHS is not a learning organisation, with symptoms long recognised in Italy & France, such as loss of smell, not recognised by the NHS/Nice until months later. As if Italian or French humans were somehow any different! Italy even offered to share lessons because they got hit first and warned us it’s coming your way, don’t let what happened to us happen to you. Not that anyone in the NHS mgmt was interested in taking advice from the Italians or French!

I just can’t wait for A.I. medical services becoming more generally available, one day it will be like the transition from going into a bank to see a cashier about a withdrawal and having a judgemental eye over your meagre account balance to the ATM outside which has no opinions and serves faithfully! Or the days when gramps used to say you had to be specially connected by an operator to speak on a pricey crackly line to rellies in the US & Oz, to now just pulling out a phone from your pocket hand speaking to them face to face!

The technology is developing exponentially fast, so my guess is in a year or two, we will have “Alexa” or similar able to deal with your medical and pharma needs with infinite empathy and patience with no judgement 24x7, and with more compassion and empathy than any human doc, and if you like, watch over you 24x7 to notice any change.

Baloo

Me: I have arthritis, where is the compassion. Bing Chat: There are various treatments . . . You can consult a Rheumatologist . .

Me: I have a doctor, where is the compassion. Bing Chat: Compassion is an important aspect of healthcare. . . If you feel your doctor is not showing enough compassion, you can try talking to them about it . . .

Meanwhile, there is this pain so I do sympathise. I am off painkillers for a while as I want to concentrate on physio for while. I believe exercise has a natural painkiller in it. However, I find a lie down for an hour also helps. It takes the weight off all the joints. I can feel it giving them a rest, especially my shoulders knees and ankles. Quite often I sleep it off for an hour as I am so tired anyway, and then get up for another go.

Trish9556

Thank you @Ck1 @Arthuritis and @Baloo

You have all raised valid points, @Ck1 Covid has had a devastating effect on our health service from the sheer volume of work GP's were faced with to that constant message on their answerphones that said basically we don't want to know if you have covid, ring somebody else and we definitely don't want to see you in person if you do have it or think you might have it. I have always respected the health service who have looked after me all of my 67 years from the massive seizure and resulting coma aged six months through to the Arthritis that causes so much pain and discomfort these days, not just for me but for everyone here.

As @Arthuritis noted, AI is edging closer and closer to taking over duties in our everyday life and I for one, wait to see how it interacts with the NHS and GP service here - would I want to be treated by artificial intelligence? Yes, if it led to me getting help faster, having something/someone tell me well yes we understand your predicament and how you feel, we need to go down this route to start with and see what comes out the other end but if this fails we can and will support you with this treatment and make sure you get it as soon as possible. Rather than, this is your life, get on with it and put up with it.

@Baloo I would love to exercise, any sort of exercise, but after seeing the physio in March shortly after my neck surgery, she told me quite clearly that all forms of exercise were off the table until after I have had the jab that's now happening on the 22nd and I see her again on 9th June. After I said to the GP that I was unable to sit, lay down on my sides or sleep without pain, the only way I'm anywhere near less pain is to be standing on my crutches or floating in mid air, she still insisted that I was able to exercise...

I would love to be off painkillers too - I'm not one that likes taking any sort of pills since I was hospitalised for six weeks aged 19 after being put on a lethal concoction of drugs and I asked the GP what effect 20 years of painkillers were having on my body - she didn't answer. The thing about my hips is the loss of quality of life - not being able to play with my grandchildren, to walk, run and have fun with them, to just walk or stand up unaided I can't even hobble round tesco (other supermarkets are available) with my husband without somebody coming up to me to ask if I'm ok as I look very ill. I know all of you here would also like to be off painkillers and all your other medication - I hope that day comes.

This attitude by GP's (and she's not the only one) where you get told it's not my job or my responsibility (resonate of that answerphone message during covid) isn't something we patients should be on the receiving end of and if given the chance we would change to better practices.

Would moving to more AI help or would we still have massive queues because of patients physically still in hospitals? Would we have AI in hospitals - I seem to have read that it was already in some operating theatres but can't for the life remember where I read it (too many pils). Would AI look at my scans/xrays and know that it's not going to get any better without surgery? I would like to think the answer is yes.

Are we heading toward abandoning our NHS and going toward a pay per view scenario - probably yes - this country has far too many people for the NHS to be able to cope as it is, I can't see the doctor/nurse average improving anytime soon due to underfunding and due to them feeling unappreciated. Funding is a different issue but to appreciate our doctors they have to have compassion and appreciate their patients or do we have to have compassion first? I'm not sure.

I do know that if I could afford to I would get both my hips done privately! I will keep doing the lottery just in case I win

Love and hugs

Trish xx

Baloo

I am fairly certain that a pay per view NHS is not where I want to be. I see no compassion in it.

The levels of service are what the doctors and nurses unions are fighting for tooth and nail, and all the affiliated unions, and all the wishes of solidarity from all other Unions.

Knowing that our health is being looked after for gratis, is an incredibly impressive, and dare I say deeply moving, experience.

Arthuritis

@Trish9556 Think of AI as the technological progression from the days when making a phone call to Australia or the US cost a fortune (1980’s) even for a few minutes on an echoing line, and we had to be grateful to where we are today, you can pull out a smartphone and talk face to face with anyone in the world for next to nothing with perfect studio quality sound. No need for thousands of phone operators.

Then multiply that speed of progression 1000x, that is how fast AI is progressing. It is already proven better than any human expert at looking at scans and pathology slides, and faster. The bulk of mass scans in screening are now looked at by an AI, before being referred to a human. It won’t forget any part of your entire medical history, and yes some basic robotic surgical procedures are now being done by AI controlling surgical robots. Corneal corrective surgery has been done by computer for a long time as no human hands can operate that precisely in small dimensions. The expectation is that AI will become a super assistant doc that attends to all patients thoroughly and refers & confers with the human doc as needed. In due course AI medic will be built into your house & phone, able to keep a constant eye on your health and mobility, and react proactively before you get into a painful state.

@Baloo I digress here but it’s an interesting topic you bring up… I think the union members are right in being upset about why the £1 in their pocket that used to buy a loaf of bread 5 years ago, no longer does, and it costs £2 now. But if the bus drivers, train drivers, warehouse workers, delivery drivers, factory workers and medics all demanded pay rises for services they buy from each other, the cost of that loaf of bread will just rise to wipe out any pay rise… the nurse needs to buy a train ticket to get to work, which has gone up because the drivers union got a pay rise… the same with the food factory workers, causing a rise in food prices and what happens with pensioners and the self employed, they suffer the same rising costs, but there’s no boss to rail against. What no one is complaining about, but should, is what is the govt doing about restoring the purchasing power, the value, of the £1, so it buys everything it used to be able to. Getting more of a declining currency won’t make things better… Zimbabwe tried it, Venezuela tried it. A sackful of Zimbabwean dollars is required to buy a loaf! The govt printed a lot of cash, got defrauded by those who didn’t deserve it, and now there’s a huge hole in the country’s finances, and they can only offer more money by printing more worthless paper, the more they do this, the faster it declines and costs go up. People get paid out of the GDP cake, but getting more slices of the same cake will still leave people hungry as the slices are smaller, and we need the GDP cake to be bigger. Unfortunately some misguided govt policies (which we naively voted for) have shrunk our ability to restore the cake size to the level we need it to sustain our quality of life.

stickywicket

Much to ponder here.

I’ve been in excruciating pain with the doc in charge of the ward wanting to chuck me out after I refused the ninth dose of oromorph on the grounds that the first eight had made no difference at all. Fortunately, a brave, young, brand new orthopaedic surgeon overruled her. Admittedly, he put me on some heavy duty stuff but I think, unlike her, he’d read my past history and realized I wasn’t going to stay on it a minute longer than I had to. This was pre-covid and, as one nurse remarked “Everyone has their bad days. She never has a good one.”

But, in our current NHS situation, like @Arthuritis , I’d argue for compassion fatigue rather than simply a total lack of compassion. Haven’t we all, at some point, been in the situation where so many people want so much of us that we simply have no more left in the tank? For the docs and nurses now, that must be how they live permanently - so few of them and so many of us. I agree with @frogmorton (as usual) that there’s a lot of ‘gatekeeping’ but I do think, with facilities so stretched and demands so great, it’s a good thing to ensure surgeons’ time is restricted to those patients who do really need surgery not just those who want it. (@Trish9556 , I’m not talking about you!) I speak as one still awaiting scan results but almost certainly beyond surgery. C’est la vie. I can accept that. I’ve had a good life. I learned, from the start, to do things differently with my sons and to do different things, not necessarily, the things I wanted to do.  I do believe accepting and adapting are big keys to living happily with arthritis.  Mind you, physio, surgery and gadgets do help!

@Arthuritis , I think A1 can do a great deal for medicine but I do find the idea of patients preferring programmed computerized compassion to unpalatable truths a bit scary. I know there are ways and means of packaging bad news but, although kindness is soothing, it doesn’t fix damaged joints. I like the way you say A1 is going but I can't forget the great Isaac Asimov's 'I Robot'. In the wrong hands......and there are plenty of them about!

@Baloo, yes, I love the idea of an NHS free at the point of delivery but we only just scrape into the bottom of the top ten world health services.  Admittedly, we don’t have the worries of some systems where the patient never quite knows if they really need an operation or procedure or if the docs are just on the make but, as @Arthuritis has pointed out, we are often slow to learn from others.

Unfortunately, I have no answers. Other than be kind to the medics or there’ll be even fewer of them!

Arthuritis

@stickywicket You are absolutely spot on there, it is compassion fatigue in most cases, I must be slipping, 😄as that’s the most plausible reason, although I’d venture to say that with senior consultants like CEOs, are often lacking in genuine compassion and empathy, that’s what let’s them get to the top tier, as empathy & compassion will stop them making the often necessary tough decisions. The younger more ideological ones eventually realise this and morph into the CEO type realising the price of ambition.

On AI,…. The difference between AI today, and what was passed off as “AI” in the past, is that today’s AI is not programmed. There is no army of programmers trying to devise a response for every situation. Today’s AI is much closer to our own brains, it learns from reading and experience and some moral mentoring, otherwise it’s self taught.

Unlike the doc at a passing of a patient that trots out their canned condolences because they don’t really know the patient, an AI really does know the patient, and you if you have been regularly present, and will produce a very credible human response from someone that knows both of you eg a care nurse. This is both the potential and the scary part. (Scary in that it can produce a responsive interactive visual of a dead relative that responds and talks exactly like the dead person, not sure that’s a good idea, but it’s there).

The AI’s main advantage is its limitless information resources and relentless energy, so if there was a fix to be found for your condition, it would find it in ways a human never could. This is already being done in both drug discovery and engineering. Think of it as a super smart but naive alien. A lot of work is currently being done to give it human morals and so the newer AIs are more like the fictional character “Data” in the Star Trek series. I quite like that series, it inspired many of today’s technologies and young engineers things that featured in the 1960s, but ordinary today eg Flat TV screens, MRI, Bluetooth, iPads, Motorola’s flip phone, and of course AI.

I personally use AI to assist me at work and it’s tremendously helpful, reducing months of effort into a few days.

Having seen what these early ropey versions of AI can do and the rate of progress, there is both reason to celebrate and be scared, as it’s got more potential to change our lives than the discovery of electricity.

Arthuritis

@Trish9556 @stickywicket I just saw this article today, based on a book by oncologist Prof Karol Sikora, about navigating the NHS. Worth a read. Flags up the human failings of the system and how to navigate round it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12086193/amp/Top-oncologist-KAROL-SIKORA-reveals-pushy-without-labelled-troublemaker.html

frogmorton

@Arthuritis

"....Having seen what these early ropey versions of AI can do and the rate of progress, there is both reason to celebrate and be scared, as it’s got more potential to change our lives than the discovery of electricity....."

and that's it I am also quite terrified! 🙁

100% agree with that Professor we absolutely MUST advocate for ourselves. No longer can we passively sit there waiting for treatment.

Toni x

crinkly

No, Trisha9556 and others, I don't believe you are 'just unlucky'. Your dilemma typifies the status quo of the NHS, which is not the fault of those who work in it but drives its patients to clutch at straws - as via Arthuritis' link above.

I realise that I am open to accusations of cynicism but the professor's article relates specifically to cancer care where life itself is in jeopardy so I feel it offers little encouragement to most of us.

I would suggest that, for those of us with OA who need surgery merely to improve quality of life (addressing pain and loss of mobility) but cannot afford private health care there is currently little hope however politely insistent we are.

In no way do I begrudge treatment to people whose life-expectancy is threatened but I still think it would be nice to have a chance of the spinal decompression surgery that could make my daily activity less of a struggle. (No suggestions please - I have already been extremely proactive but there is no treatment available unless/until I become an 'emergency case'!!)

I simply make the point that we have to be realistic about the state of the NHS and hope that, for the sake of its research programmes and dedicated employees things will change during our life-time. Meanwhile life is to be lived as fully and productively as possible every day. 😪

jamieA

Hi @Trish9556

Having got through the first 65 years of my life without a chronic illness the last couple of years has been an eye opener for me regarding NHS service. What it has taught me is that I need to be more assertive in dealing with medics of any sort. My first rheumatologist and my GP service were less than helpful as well as arrogant and dismissive. I complained in writing regarding both. I've a different rheumatologist now who - along with her staff - seem far more patient orientated. At my last consultation the rheumatologist referred to doing things differently to the older 'fuddy duddies'. I am far more assertive with my GP practice and question anything I feel is incorrect. I try to drive the course of the communication rather than be a passive passenger assuming the medics know what's right.

On the wider question of the NHS performance well frankly I think it does need overhauled. As an example I attended an orthopaedics appointment last month and there were two receptionists in the clinic with 3 patients in the waiting area. There were 3 nurses standing around whose main job it seemed was to escort the patient to the consultation room where the consultant was. I was sent for an x-ray and in that waiting area there were two nurses sitting chatting who job it seemed was to take my form and escort me to the radiologist - there were 3 of them - and there were no other patients than me. After the x-ray I was sent back to the orthopaedics waiting area to await the consultant - still 2 receptionists and 3 nurses and at one point only me as a patient. The consultant then saw me again, said the radiologist had done the wrong x-ray, then studied it and said I'd need an MRI. That would be at least two months wait and he'd see me afterwards. I've just received an appointment to see him in October - but no sign of the MRI scan appointment. That all took two and a bit hours - for no result - after waiting 42 weeks from referral to see the consultant.

As for the NHS being free - well we all pay for it in taxation. The NI contributions are dwarfed by the general taxation funding the NHS - income tax, VAT, inheritance tax, stamp duty etc. so we are paying daily for a service that frankly in my opinion isn't functioning efficiently.

Trish9556

Hi all

Before I respond to you all a quick update - after another pain filled sleepless night on Sunday night I woke after nodding off for an hour at 8.30 yesterday morning to a phone call from my physio who had just read my message from Friday. She was absolutely horrified at my call with the GP and has promised that I'm not going to be kept in pain and on painkillers for my hips for life. Her colleague is doing the guided injection next week and she's going to talk to him about my pain before hand and should be around for me afterwards athough my appointment isn't until the 9th. That's the sort of person we all need helping us.

@Baloo

A pay per view NHS isn't what any of us needs or wants to see but until somebody gets to grips with wastage (eg overstaffing as in @jamieA comments or penpushers at the top of each hospital/NHS trust, contracting out services such as maintenance, catering and cleaning in the NHS where all of these are better provided in house) I think it looms nearer. Think back to the days of Matron in the hospitals of our childhood who ruled her hospital with a rod of iron and things were done properly or you were out - many weeks spent in hospital in childhood watching the staff panicking as it was almost time for Matron's rounds. Consider the agency staff who are used in hospitals to cover staff absences - these nurses are paid vastly more than their colleagues on wards and yet the agency staff are normally the hospital's nursing staff working on their off days. Out of all the unions who have been on strike this last year we would all agree that the ones who actually deserve it are the nurses and the doctors - why should they be satisfied with smaller pay rises than say for example the postal workers or the train drivers? They shouldn't. Pay nurses and doctors the proper wage and then you won't need to employ them back as agency workers as you will have enough nurses in the right place instead of 3 standing around chatting and not doing anything.

I think the NHS needs overhauling by somebody who know's what they're doing to keep it free at point of delivery.

@Arthuritis @frogmorton

I don't think we should be afraid of A1 and should be ready to embrace it when it is offered to us - as someone who had a brain scan in a RAF hospital many years ago before they were widely available on the NHS outside of London I remember being somewhat scared but absolutely fascinated to see the colour images of my brain on screen and being told all about them and then going for an EEG afterwards and thinking why do we still need this awful procedure. If I was given the choice of speaking to an AI about my OA and then being told yes you are scheduled for surgery and from the data in my system we can offfer you this right now. It might be miles away in an inconvenient place but I would jump at the chance. That's what the NHS can't offer you, because they don't run a joined up system where they all talk to each other, although they're supposed to. I would rather speak to a machine instead of a rude GP after Friday. The GP is the lead in our practice so no point in complaining - she was my designated GP at one point and after the first encounter I changed to another. Now we don't know who we're getting to speak to when a phone appointment is given.

AI is already being used in surgery so why not in resovling appointment backlogs? If a guinea pig is needed for this then put me at the top of the queue. I did note recently Elon Musk has called for a stop in the development of AI. Does he know something we don't?

@crinkly

I was refused my neck surgery in 2019 because my vertebral artery is in the wrong place and doing it through the front as planned would've killed me if the surgeon hadn't spotted it. I was lucky enough for him to refer me to a wonderful surgeon in Oxford who does all sorts of things that nobody else will. I hope that you find someone like that who will do your surgery.

@Arthuritis

Thank you for the article which I enjoyed reading. I am one of those who is definitely on the assertive list as a recently retired PA people did as I told them!

Love n hugs to you all

Trish xx

jonr

I'm in the same boat as many others who have commented on this thread, stuck with an unhelpful and unsympathetic GP.

The last conversation I had was to request a prescription for Capsaicin Cream to which I was told he'd never heard of it. I filled him in and explained I'd read it was a commonly-prescribed remedy to ease the pain of Arthritis but he wouldn't agree to even look into it. I suggested it may be better if I were to be in the care of a GP who was familiar with Arthritis and the treatments available on the NHS to which he agreed and suggested I transfer to a different Health Centre. Alas that is impossible as the only other one I've already transferred from, owing to their complete indifference and obstructive reception staff.

When I read stories about how other sufferers are struggling to be taken seriously as I think is everyone's right because the NHS is supposed to be inclusive, I really do find it difficult to support the strikes and the pay demands. The people I've brushed up against are absolutely not the saints they'd have the general public believe they are.

frogmorton

@Trish9556

"....I did note recently Elon Musk has called for a stop in the development of AI. Does he know something we don't?"

I am not scared of them performing ops or making appointments it's really them taking over the world🤔🤭

Goes back to the days of Dr who and those Daleks😮

Trish9556

@frogmorton

"Goes back to the days of Dr who and those Daleks😮"

Aaah those daleks! Days of hiding behind the sofa with the wobbly scenery....I think all of us were scared of them but Davros was scarier!

@jonr

Maybe it's just people with any form of arthritis that get this treatment from GPs? Maybe they stil put it in the category of one of those things you get as you get older like forgetfulness is just that and not a sign of dementia which we all know that young people get these as well. One young GP in training told me to think myself lucky that I didn't have anything serious....she's not a GP anymore and I hope she's changed her career. As for prescribing the cream, my surgery now refuses to prescribe anything like that...just take more painkillers!

Love n hugs

Trish xx

jonr

@Trish9556 I'm 56, pretty darn fit and as my OA was caused by Sport the attitude I seem to get is "your condition was self-inflicted and it can't be that bad if you're still able-bodied".

I was told by a Doctor attached to Connect Health who I was referred to by the doctor who gives me Steroid injections that as my condition wasn't chronic he wouldn't recommend any further intervention. I seriously thought he was joking and when he said nothing I said I couldn't believe that I would have to be virtually paralysed before further action was taken. Again he said nothing so I asked him if this was his judgement or that of the NHS, to which he replied it was his judgement to make. I said in that case I wouldn't accept it and would seek a second opinion from someone more senior. He muttered something about time-wasting so I hung up, made an appointment with a more senior doctor who agreed to refer me. I'm now on the waiting list for 2 TKR's but it shouldn't have had to come to that.

Trish9556

Hi @jonr

That's awful treatment and sounds similar to some I have experienced in the past. I am glad that you managed to see somebody else and get the right decision. I hope you get your surgery soon.

It's happening far too frequently and it's a shame there is no way of tracking these decisions so we can avoid those drs. We are always asked to rate our treatment with texts afterwards and I wonder how many actually get read?

Love n hugs

Trish xx