"It was our last chance"

In May 2022 I took my father, who is in his late 70's, to an MAU appointment in the hope that someone would finally listen and not dismiss my father as yet another old man with a slight cough. At this point it had been 5 months of decline; from walking several miles a day for many years, my father could hardly stand or walk and was losing weight as he could not eat or drink properly. We feel like no one was taking us seriously and the inevitability of what was happening was infuriating. He was a man who (now) looked old, and this is how he had been seen; no one assessed him in context.

I was very angry at the GP surgery and referral process which had preceded the fortunate chance meeting with the last GP he had seen. It was obvious to me that whatever the underlying cause, my fathers chances of survival were rapidly diminishing and as many know, a lot of time is wasted with medical appointments/tests/referrals process which all take '2 weeks' ( 2 to organise, 2 to happen, 2 to see the results). I feel it was only a matter of time before he was going to starve to death if something did not change. 

My words when we finally got to MAU in Barnstaple that day were not altogether friendly; I was angry at my father seemingly being left to die. Despite this, the change that took place that day was nothing short of a miracle. They were able to do what no one else had; listened. Took us seriously. Looked past the 'old man'. They did not follow a textbook script, and took some action; made something happen. They delivered a result, and gave hope.

The result was a desperately needed whole body CT scan taking place that day and uncovering a very significant issue which had thus far been completely unknown; an enlarged spleen measuring around 16cm in diameter. Finally, we had something real. Finally we were not treated as if we were making things up.

I don't know what magic was worked to get a CT scan that day, but it was not booked to happen and we know how impossible it is to get one normally (why??). It is no exaggeration to say that had they not secured that CT scan, my father may not be alive today. The MAU department saved his life by making sure he could no longer be ignored as just another 'old man'.

Please can someone in the health service give more support to the teams of people involved in MAU? Give them the tools and resources they need, including all the little things like the right needles they want to use to take blood efficiently when a patients arm is already full of holes and their blood pressure is non-existent.

My father should never have been left as long as he was and despite the positive outcome for him so far, it has been a long and complicated road which could have been far less of a burden on the healthcare system if a diagnosis had been made earlier.

We need a lot more people like the staff here if the health service is going to assess patients more promptly; it would pay dividends.

Thank you everyone involved in the MAU, but in particular Helen; you made all the difference. My father is back walking the hills with the dog again.