Posts
"I thought I was having chest pains. The GP, in the same day, referred me to hospital to have my heart checked. And lo and behold, there’s no spaces for the MRI free. So I have to go all the way across Scotland. This was just before the second lockdown,...read more
"The most important thing is about everyone having equal access. There's too much variation in access to mental health services, to specialist services. It shouldn't matter where you live, or what your postcode is."
"My daughter had some mental health problems a year ago. And it's very, very difficult to access mental health care in any meaningful way whatsoever. She was actually quite acute at that point and got nothing from the health service."
"I used to work on a medical intervention ward, which was mainly elderly people who’ve had falls and were waiting to go for rehab or get some social care support. And they, essentially, were bed blocking. Because there weren’t the facilities available."
"A friend of mine was in hospital for five months, because they couldn't find anywhere she could be. She had no money to pay for [care] herself."
"I had my father in law waiting for a hip operation. These days it's about 18 months. And just before his operation, he had the pre op check. And they found that he had some condition where his blood doesn't clot. And they couldn't work out what to do. So...read more
"In terms of more mundane interactions, I've almost given up going to the GP because it just takes so long to work."
"My dad has been in and out of psychiatric hospital and that has been challenging, accessing appropriate care for him. Both of our parents are of an age now where they're not in care homes, but they need support. And getting that is challenging as well. I think the whole...read more
"Working in the homelessness sector, we have to fight to get treatments for people who are very, very ill. For mental health and addiction treatment, for general treatment or for social care. They just get missed out."
"A lot of people that tend to care for people with disabilites like myself are not very good at doing things like form filling. They tend to think, 'Oh, this guy he's up and about. He's quite independent.' And they forget about your other needs. And when you enquire, you don't get...read more
"I am going to need another operation soon. And I say soon, there's the potential that the eight month wait that I was told to expect before will now double. And therefore I am not expecting really to be living the next couple of years of my life. Well, not...read more
"I took my brother to hospital, and he broke his knee because of football. And I was basically his next of kin. I was talking on behalf of him because he was in real pain. He waited for so long, literally five or six hours, to be seen."