"Treatment ( or lack of it )"

Right now stress levels are through the roof ! My doctor couldn't give a call back till 2 weeks time so I called 111 instead.  I requested that they withhold recording my info for privacy and after going through the rigmarole of 111 finally received a phone call 2 hours later by a clinician . Next morning the pharmacy rang me to ask what they could do for me so asked about my enquiry to which they could offer no advice but more importantly I asked how they got my number to which they replied 111 NHS sent it to them , so much for not sharing my data great GDPR.

Anyhow nearly a week later the problem got worse so I rang the hospital and asked if an appointment could be made to attend a clinic and have the problem looked at and fixed to which I was told I must get my doctor to make a referral ! 

Bear with me it gets better .

So I then called back to the doctors and waited patiently at number 10 in the queue to finally speak with the receptionist who wouldn't get a doctor to call me back until I explained the issue.  I explained the whole rigmarole only to be told they don't do referrals . Undeterred I called the hospital back and was advised go to A and E to which I said aren't they under pressure? 

The only option was A and E so I asked the best time to come with least waiting and fuss. They then told me at that point 98 people where in A and E with an average wait time of 9 hours , so much for my forethought - at that rate they would still be there at 4:00 in the morning.

On their advice  I decided to call the walk in surgery who were obviously experiencing high call volumes and were very short staffed due to coronavirus , bizarrely it was 2023 . Success, I finally found a doctor who would call me back in two days . Let's hope the doctor doesn't cancel like my NHS dentist has done on the last three occasions and put me further down the queue.

You couldn't make it up but sadly it is true. It saddening to think that this country is part of the developed world and a Uber rich economy.