Brothers diagnosis

So,  the departures from my experience continue with my brothers journey.

When I had my biopsy, it was in the ultrasound department, transrectal ultrasound guided.

My brother had his this morning in a side room on the urology ward. So he's not sure it was ultrasound guided. Do they do it any other way? 

They took six cores from each side of his prostate. 

The consultant said they would organise bone scans as soon as possible,  perhaps even before the biopsy results are available. 

Two week wait now for the biopsy to be seen by the MDT and results are known.

I just hope the differences in the way they are dealing with my brother don't indicate serious issues, but I'm fearing the worst based on my experience. 

Mick 

MDT was held this morning.

He received a call from a secretary to tell him they were asking for bone and CT scans.

No information or results at all from the biopsy.

He asked for more but was told no one was available. He rang back to try to speak to someone and the department had closed for the weekend.

And they are asking for better pay! Better performance would be a start!

Sorry I'm ranting but for goodness sake! This is serious stuff and they leave it to a typist to pass on a message. Simply not good enough in my book.

I hear what you are saying, but there are many professions that are under pressure and have suffered pay erosion. But they still maintain standards, it has long been a problem that the consultant system produces doctors with almost Godlike authority that do not stand being questioned.

My wife was a nurse and has many experiences of consultants who would not accept a desk being in the wrong place for their clinics or who would speak inappropriately about patients. 

We see endless examples of bad practice and incompetence in the NHS which cannot be excused by poor pay and conditions. It's poor management and oversight, which we as patients have to challenge rather than have it dealt with by the people who should be making sure that care is acceptable. For some it is their families who have to complain after a relatives death. 

The whole system needs root and branch reform, but it will be a brave government that takes this expensive and powerful bull by the horns, witness the current junior doctor strike. 

Hi Mick

i feel your frustration- the waiting and not knowing is horrible.

have you thought of making a subject access request for the results. I do this for every test that my husband has. I feel bad that I am wasting someone’s time but it gets us the results quickly and I feel we are both intelligent enough to interpret the reports. I know this means that you do not have an expert opinion of your test results at the same time but, sadly, for whatever reason, the system is too broken to provide an adequate level of care.

hope you get some answers soon

Hi Mick

I can honestly say the level of care my husband has had has been shockingly bad to the point that I tell everyone, we are alone on this cancer journey and nobody seems to care.

my husbands cancer is terminal and he is just on his 9th round of chemotherapy re challenge, had been hospitalised the last 3 cycles and still we can’t see a consultant. After a battle, we have been given a telephone appointment for September!

making a subject access request has genuinely been the only source of information for us.

i don’t ask for information, i go onto the MSA SARs website and formally request information.

so for a biopsy report I would request exactly that, providing the date of the biopsy on where your brother had it. 

obviously he would need to make the request (think you can do it in someone’s behalf with their consent).

Hope you get some answers - it’s your information and you have a right to access it.

Mags

They on completion of two years foundation training chose a specialism and have to pay over the next ten years or more depending on their specialism tens of thousands for exams to progress, professional college memberships and their own liability insurance. It can take 12 years to become a consultant in some specialisms.

They get vilified by the public so who can blame them for clearing off to Canada or Australia where they work less hours for more money and even get a lunch break.

Wes Streeting is talking of scrapping their debt - which is divisive- just pay them commensurate to knowledge responsibility and experience. It’s really not much to ask. They find money for HS2 and vanity projects and wars after all.

They might not run into burning buildings if required maybe a few times a year like a firefighter but they save thousands of lives and improve quality of life of tens of thousands more over their career, if there’s enough of them.

A firefighter trainee earns around £28000 no uni debt. They do risk their lives for others but it’s comparing apples and pears.

I don’t think pay restoration is unreasonable, resident doctors suffered the biggest pay erosion across all public sector.

The country is in a mess, but if we want to encourage new doctors to train, and older doctors to remain I don’t believe we can afford not to pay them as it’s us the public that suffer.

GP is extremely underfunded compared to hospitals and it’s hard to attract new trainee GP. The previous government refused to talk with dictums, imposed a disasterous contract and rather than deal with the situation brought in physician associates. They aren’t doctors though get paid very well for having a fraction of the knowledge seeing half as many patients and rightly limited in scope. Who suffers …. Patients. It’s short sighted and costly to have PA not doctors, and there are GP that can’t get jobs because they use PAs and surgeons whose training is slowed as they use the surgical equivalent of a PA.

We suffer delays and waits and it’s horrendous but I don’t blame the over worked underpaid doctors I blame austerity and the court of public opinion.

Once we have an insurance based system which I don’t see being far off we will all wish we’d found the money for pay restoration, that would attract and retain doctors and ensure restoration of good quality care for us all.

As you can see I feel really strongly about the NHS so none of us suffer these delays and uncertainty and all get access to better care.

Best wishes to all in this stressful journey. 😊

Turkey.

You make some incredibly valid points, the money our government sees fit to throw at things like HS2, foreign wars, aid that goes to the wrong place, PPE that goes to landfill etc etc is staggering and almost criminal. 

Simply hosting the orange buffoon that is Donald Trump is money we could spend much more effectively elsewhere. 

The health service was set up to provide a level of care not previously seen and out of reach of working class folk. But it has become perverted to provide unnecessary "Health care" and to mend a level of self abuse by a population that has way too much compared to the post war austerity in which it was born.

People were fitter, lighter and healthier back then. Before widespread use of drugs was even possible, when they ate food that was basic but better for them and when they walked more than they ride around in cars, or indeed mobility scooters which are now just a motorised shopping trolley for many (i know i know there are genuine reasons for using such a device but really? Some of the folk you see on them would be better off walking).

It's not simply the lack of money or wages or whatever that has broken the health service or the police, or ambulance or fire service.  It is us, the Great British public, with access to mobile phones and the Internet we overload services that could never cope with the sheer volume of rubbish that modern life generates. As a cop I saw the world change from BC (before cell phones) to AD always demanding. 

I always said my first job as health secretary would be to put large bouncers on every A&E reception instead of triage nurses;

"You fell at work and injured your knee? Please come in and we will have someone to you shortly"

"You got drunk, took drugs, tried to climb some scaffolding and fell off. And now you have a twisted ankle and want to sue not only the scaffolding firm but the alcohol company, drug supplier and probably the NHS too. On your way sunshine, we are not here for idiots like you"

Might sound harsh but the average A&E department wastes countless hours on people who feel so entitled they will not be told no. Whilst waiting for treatment to a work injury, I watched a man recently park his Audi in an ambulance bay, he spoke to the triage nurse explaining when he lifted his arm it hurt him. No he had not had an accident, no he did not know how this had happened,  no it wasn't an emergency, no it didn't stop him working or driving. It just hurt and he was here now so somebody damned well better see him as he had paid his taxes. I was within an ace of stepping up to this privileged pile of nonsense and inviting him outdoors to generate injuries that would require the services of A&E. 

The country has gone soft and no amount of funding will cure this affliction, too much disposable income and a skewed sense of priorities, data poverty? Come on, thats not poverty just because you can't update your kids Facebook status. 

It's so easy to become political and blame the doctors, the government,  the austerity etc etc. But a lot comes back to the way we and others abuse the systems that once coped very well with the demand they were built to deal with.