"Long long wait"

My wife managed to secure a face to face appointment with her GP but only after I insisted via email to the surgery that she needed to be examined as her complaint (excessive pain in the rear ribcage) had lasted over two weeks, with no sign of it improving.

This was finally granted only having to wait four days to see her GP.

It was a new doctor to the surgery who was very thorough, having both her blood taken and an ECG in the surgery.

She was then informed it would be approximately a week to receive the results.

Late the same evening, she received a telephone call from the NHS advising her that one of the levels of a certain chemical was high, which is a Cardiac marker and advised her strongly to attend the nearest A & E department as a matter of urgency.

Lincoln County Hospital is the nearest one to us being just over an hour away.

This was a Friday night, so we were prepared for the usual drunken crowds that can descend on the hospital over the weekend evenings but we're pleasantly surprised on arrival when there were only seven people waiting to be examined.

We booked in and within fifteen minutes she had more blood taken and another ECG. 

In Triage she was advised that her bloods would take around ninety minutes to be analysed.

In actual fact we were in the hospital for over eight hours. We were moved to another waiting area after Triage where over twenty people were waiting to see a doctor.

We finally saw a doctor who took more blood but this sample took less than twenty five minutes to be checked.

The doctor finally said that the level of the Troponin in her blood had read 14 when taken at the GP surgery, normal levels are between 0 and 10.

The blood counts completed at the hospital were 13 and 12, so as they were reducing, she could go home, taking painkillers for the pain and received no other instructions.

Having heard nothing from any NHS source for over a week, I emailed the surgery on my wife's behalf enquiring as to what is happening as the pain has remained the same. I received no reply. The following day I emailed again only this time a little more forceful, within seven minutes of that email being sent my wife received a telephone call from the surgery offering her a face to face appointment with a GP the very next day, which she accepted.

This GP had not been involved with anything to do with my wife's condition. He examined her as she explained everything to him.

At the end of the consultation the GP stated that a level of 14 of Troponin is no real cause for concern as a Cardiac marker and that a level of 50 would be.

She has now been prescribed a strong anti inflammatory and that seems to be easing the pain.

All the stress we were put under and for a simple blood test to take over eight hours. From our point of view we felt it pathetic to see night staff simply stood around waiting for a doctor to appear.