wheres darren?

Guess what????

Yeap thats correct, [b:70a57a1d22]NO PHONE CALL BACK[/b:70a57a1d22].

To say I am fuming is an understatement. After reading the post that got moderated & then returned, and the person stating that there is a longer waiting list for injections than surgery, I am now going to call the Pain Clinic on Monday and ask them straight, without being fobbed off if this what I am going to be offered, as I am not spending the best part of a weeks benefits in travel expenses for them to tell me that they are not going to do anything about it (I can go to a GP to be told that!).

I am also going to send the Pain Clinic an invoice for the phone calls & the time it takes for me to do them (plus the pain holding a phone to my ear).

NHS is in crisis in a big way now and needs to be sorted out once & for all. Maybe they should let US on here run it for 12 months and get it back on track again, as we seem to know more about things than the actual hospitals & GP's do!!!!

Bit the bullet Saturday morning and phoned the appointments line at the Pain Clinic. Explained that I had been told and the girl on the other end told me that there was nothing on my records to call me back! I asked her what first appointments are for, and was told my records state this would be a 15 minute assesment only appointment & a further appointment would be made if they could offer treatment. [b:b517c710f2]I told her to cancel it there & then[/b:b517c710f2]. How do they expect people living on the miserly amount of benefits to spend the best part of a weeks money on transportation costs to a 15 minute assesment & then cannot guarentee that they could offer me help at all!!??

They expect me to leave my house at 0530 to get on the train at 0630 on a Friday morning , then get a bus that would get me to the Hospital 5 minutes before my appointment time & then try to find the correct department to where I need to be in the current weather conditions? It is bad enough that the cold is not helping as it is indoors, let alone outdoors!

My new GP's are going to be facing an irate patient on Monday morning now as I am not going to be leaving there until I get some sort of treatment, regardless of what they say about not having my notes!

hi darren

what can i say?? surely there must be an alternative to travel all that way to a pain clinic when obviously the travelling there is going to amount to considerable pain! maybe your gp could organise an ambulance to take you, hopefully your new gp will be able to sort something out for you and also some pain meds for you that work, as we all know here too well that is can be trial and error with new medication. best of luck . gail

Hi Darren

You must be so p*ssed off. How far is this pain clinic from where you live?? I thought that if you are on benefits you could get your travel costs to hospital reimbursed, not that that is much help when you have to find the money up front. Any news about your records turning up at your new GP yet?? It would be great if you could find someone at the new practice that could think outside the box. Maybe it is best to draw a line under your treatment (or lack of it) and let the new GP put you back in the system from scratch. There are new time limits now for treatment, if you went in afresh, it would mean starting again but at least experience could point you to the right place at the outset, i.e. if you need surgery....to a surgeon!!! It would mean that everything to date has been a complete waste of time, but it sounds like that is the case anyway. And you have a choice of hospitals, surgeons, appointment times, everything now. Consultant to consultant referrals have no NHS time limits/guidelines, but GP to Consultant referrals must be seen inside 13 weeks. It seems to me that if the bod at the pain clinic refers you on to a surgeon then it could be a very long wait. Some forward thinking hospitals have actually abolished consultant to consultant referrals, to stop people getting lost in the system, they refer everyone back to their GP, who then re-refers them to the right place. A complete pain, but actually it's quicker in the long run. I wish that I had known that was an option back in May.

I have never been to a pain clinic but it sounds to me like a holding station. I'm sure it is good for people in chronic pain where surgery or other treatment is not possible, e.g those with MS, but I would not be happy if that was all I was being offered if I needed surgery.

Good luck. If all else fails.......cry :cry: :cry: us girlies have been doing it for centuries to great effect!!!!

TFU

hi darren

how did things go at the new gp? as tfu says maybe it is better to get back to basics with the new doc, and maybe things will flow a liitle better for you . gail

I have only just calmed down as no joy at all with GP. They have said that they cannot start afresh as it is an ongoing ailment & if they do, they have to try the medications that have already been tried and failed already as that is apparently (how true it is I don't know) how it works due to audits etc as my notes as they stand show no information regarding what has and hasn't been done. My notes still haven't arrived (if the internal mail system is like HMRC's then they could be in anybody's possession now!).

Travel costs, so I have been told, are only refunded to those on benefits at DWP medicals that are compulsory for claims.

Story of my life this, never easy!

Hi Darren...did I read previously that you are on Income Support? You can claim back public transport costs for hospital appointments, out patients appts etc. Just keep your bus/train tickets and hand it in to the receptionist at the relavant Dept where you appt is to be held and you will get a refund.

Take care,

Jules xx :D :D

Yes, on IS & InCap. I did ask about the reimbursement each time I phoned the Pain Clinic (as it was being mentioned on here a fair bit) and was told that you only get reimbursed for DWP medicals, and they would not reimburse me my expenses even though I am on the benefits I am receiving. Whether each PCT has different structures in place for patients on benefits, I don't know, but in this area only at the DWP medicals have I ever been asked or informed that reimbursement was available for those on benefits.

More ineffiency from the NHS.

Just got back from the Doctors, and found out that they received my notes on the 16th November, yet when I went in on Monday, they said they had not got them!!!!

Was still told the same thing again by the doctors \"nothing can be done by them\".

What the hell am I supposed to do now? Suffer for the rest of my life? Nobody within the Health Service seems to give a damn about people with problems and the pain they are in!!!!!

You disc prolapse lot dont have much luck do yaz :?

hi darren

have you thought about trying physio again? you prob tried it before but as things stand now you cant lose nothing by trying it again, and they may be able to offer different methods of pain relief, i know my physio was a gem but owing to having cord compression i cant try physio again now til after the op but i will certainly be going back there post-op. have you tried hydro therepy? that ive heard is very good for \"our\" type of illness. sometimes its not the chemical medicines that always work, so may be worth looking into.

hi dr spock

yeh i didnt realize how much \"back/neck\" problems were overlooked before suffering myself and i,ve had a few injuries in my time but NOTHING comperes with the everlasting pain of prolapses, i really think it is underestimated how this condition can affect your life for so long, i,ve surprised myself how its affected me, im usually a person that will work with a severe chest infection , other illnesses because i love my job so much but this has just knocked the stuffing out of me completely!! but i wont let it beat me, i aim to get fit and back to work and doing sports etc asap after the op. (oh and of course getting back to travelling which i miss so much) gail

I feel as I am being taken for a ride by Doctors!!!!!!

I found out that at the new surgery, every single time I have been seen by a 'doctor' they are FINAL YEAR STUDENT DOCTORS!!!!! What is going on in this world?????? I understand that everyone has to start somewhere, but I would expect that I would I actually get to see a fully qualified GP rather than someone that does not understand what problems I am suffering and I have to explain everything to them from my own research! They obviously didn't read my notes as I was asked if I had tried Co-Codamol for the pain & Diclofenac!!!!! A quick glance at the notes on the screen would have told them what I had been prescribed already to no avail! Instead I have to run off a list that is over 20 items of the meds that have been tried in the last 12 months!

At this point in time I am seriously tempted to email the pharmaceutical companies and see if they require any test subjects for any new pain relief!!!!! If I end up having a reaction to the new meds & end up looking like the elephant man, at least it would be something to take my mind off the existing pain!!!!!!!

I spoke to a friend of mine that lives in Yorkshire, and he has been suffering for a number of years with his back and knees. Docs refuse to offer surgery on the NHS until he is 55!!!! He is 34 at the moment!!!! He has had the strongest pain relief available including nerve blocks & none of them have worked at all. He used to be a Police Officer and a Doorman. Now he can barely walk unaided.

I noticed in the local paper yesterday that a woman has made her local PCT pay for the treatment that she had in Europe due to severely long NHS waiting times!!!! It took them 3 years & legal action before they paid out the £305 to her that the scans she required urgently cost at the European Doctors!!!! It costs the NHS more than that in the UK for a scan!!!!!

I hope that the PCT's take note of this!!!!!! I envisage a lot more of this type of things happening in the near future if things do not improve.

hi darren,

where have you been????

on the drugs testing.....yeh try that you get paid lots too :magic:

and why are you up so late :?: silly question really, i know why you up late, have you heard anything from pain management? :sorry: need to catch up :wink:

take care and contact me :ok: x

:rose:mandy:rose:

hi darren

you could ask when you make an appointment at the surgery to be seen by experienced doctor, but there again you,d probebly be waiting ages(theres that word again). i agree with mandy about the drug trials, maybe its worth looking into. about the having treatment abroad and your local pct paying well i did try that with my local health authority(not abroad but in england) due to the long waiting lists here in wales and was told they wont do that cos they dont like to pay another trust out of their budget???? but all the money comes from government anyway so what the difference? take care gail

I would like to know why the link to a [b:83abf74f63]NEWS STORY [/b:83abf74f63]regarding the woman receiving payment after legal action for her treatment was removed from the post? It was an important part of the post and non-soliciting or detrimental to this or any other site (a direct link to a local newpsaper page).