# Serious NHS concerns-how do we raise them formally?



## Miss pooh (May 26, 2013)

Hi 

Has anyone had that many issues with their treatment or clinics that you felt you had to take it further?
My husband and I have been going through investigations for 3 years now. At various stages we have felt the level of information and treatment given to us by our clinic(s) and GP to be poor. To put this in context we have had our initial investigations at our GP, endocrinology at Hairmyres, ultrasounds at the jubilee, genetic counselling at the southern, initial fertility clinic at Monklands, ACU at Glasgow royal, further investigations at Wishaw General, surgical clinic at Southern general, counselling at Glasgow Royal. So we have attended afew hospitals, clinics at various times for various reasons. 
As I said, we feel the information / treatment we have had at times to be poor. We have raised this with the individual clinics at the time, only to be told, they are sorry, sorry about the issue, sorry we are going through this, just sorry. Only to have something else happen at another clinic. Whilst these issues were sometimes unrelated, they were happening at different clinics, they always happened to us and it is all related to our fertility treatment. 
Recently this has become exhausting for us both and quite honestly We have stopped looking forward to making steps forward in our fertility treatment as we presume another issue will come up. Another recent concern we have raised on Patient Opinion for review relating to surgery on my husband. I would like to be able to raise all the other concerns from the entire journey we have, formally, through something similar to Patient Opinion.
however because of the way the patient opinion website is set up, it raises it per hospital, I really do not feel that the full picture and level of concerns we have would be apparent once separated up into clinics. Can you give advise on how we could approach this issue of reporting formally? If nothing else we would like to make sure our concerns are heard and that we can start to look forward to a positive outcome of our treatment. Also we would like to help stop the same kind of issues occurring agin with other couples. One thing I noticed a recent open day was that other couples obviously have their own concerns and it's all things I have heard before, which is vindicating in a way to know we are not alone, but disappointing in another, because it's apparent that the NHS struggle with certain aspects of this treatment. I feel it's our responsibility to help make what's left of our journey and those of other couples more positive. One of the steps I feel would help is by formally reporting our concerns otherwise how is a service supposed to know or improve itself. I hope you do not think we are simply moaning, this has been a long and hard time for us. We don't even know if we are over reacting because it not exactly something we are familiar with. I think the point is our concerns are genuine and we would like to know either way, that we are either right to feel this way or be given justification for the things we have experienced. I have not gone into detail of the issues here, as there are so many! 
I hope this all makes sense and I am not rambling or ranting. Our family have suggested approaching a charity or local MP for advice. 

Does anyone else know what I mean? Or am I being a fertility mental case😁


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## Handstitchedmum (Mar 24, 2013)

Hello Miss Pooh, I'm sorry to hear about your negative experiences. You are right that it is important to bring the concerns to someone with oversight over the whole patient pathway. Have you tried complaining to commissioners or regulators? I am unsure how it works in Scotland, but here in England there are several places you can complain, such as CCGs, NHS England, and CQC.


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## Miss pooh (May 26, 2013)

Hello, 

Thank you! I have been given some advice on getting in touch with the chief executive of our health board or raising it through our MSP. I have been in touch with a local charity who have dealt with similar in the past so there is scope for them to assist. 
There are options available and I'm sorry it's come to this, but I certainly won't settle until I've raised it with NHS, even if they turn around and say what we have experienced is normal, but I don't think so. 

Xx


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## FroggyOne (Jul 10, 2012)

Hi Miss pooh

Oh I know exactly what you are talking about. I too have so many issues with NHS. 

Because of work I had to move from one county to another and change GP/hospitals. They are just getting worse and worse. I have a long list of mistakes. From GP refusing to check my breast after a specialist pointed it MUST be checked annually, delaying for nearly 2 years! bowel cancer check up just because they thought it might  have been something else (despite fact that my father died of cancer and had the same symptoms). 
Lost hospital referral. 2x lost my files when changing GP. 
Referral to private clinic for knee MRI sent to the wrong clinic delaying my treatment by 3 weeks! 
I was given clomid and told that if that won't work we move to ivf straight away. Turned out clomid was a mistake I never needed it and it made things only worse and it turned out they lied about ivf too - we couldn't get it for another 1.5 yr! I was yelling at them so laud the whole hospital could hear me 
Waiting over 3 weeks for fertility blood test forms because there is only ONE fertility nurse in the whole clinic! 
When I asked for blood forms to be send to private clinic so I could do them quickly one nurse forgot to mute her phone and I could hear her complaining and saying 'it's not my job I'm not going to do that she can get lost'! When I complained I was told I was a  liar and I'm making things up!
We spent over a year trying to sort out ivf funding there were so many nhs mistakes we decided to go privately.
Currently - new GP surgery - Countless errors in our ivf funding referral. Obviously it was refused! I was told off by a nurse that I don't have an up to date smear test, I said I did it year ago and don't qualify for another she said I must do it, Went to the surgery only to be told by a different nurse that I don't qualify for the test but she did it anyway. Obviously test not run!
Only few days later yet another nurse took  my bloods I needed 5 tests, she run 15, took just one sample (should be 3) only 6 results came back, and I had to go back 2 more times because they just can't read English! 
I get to the point that I insisted to pay for icsi.


Sorry for a long moan. 
frog x


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## Miss pooh (May 26, 2013)

Hi Beattie and groggy, 

I had not checked this thread in a while so just catching up! 

Thanks a million for the link to feedback form, we will definitely use this to start the ball rolling. In the mean time we have left feedback on patient opinion about my hubby's recent operation so will see if he gets any feedback from this. He has already had other readers say they had similar experiences, which I find amazing, it's not isolated occurrences. 

Wow frogs, it's amazing how very simple organisation/ understanding could have avoided a lot of your issues. It seems very similar that you have a catalogue of concerns and they all build up don't they?


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## FroggyOne (Jul 10, 2012)

HI Miss pooh,

Yep organisation is the worst side of NHS. Terrible! 

I have a really good private insurance which most of the time is totally useless because first I have to fight with surgeries and GPs. That is non of their business how I want to spend my private money! That's enough we all pay enormous amounts every month for NHS! 

Hope you will get your answers and and appologies 

frog x


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