"Poor experience in the Assessment unit"

I started this illness in December. Over the next 4 months, I visited a different GP four times, & was prescribed the same kind of antibiotic each time with limited success.

In May, another GP decided that I was so ill that she referred me to Ward 101. I cannot fault my treatment there by the ward staff. However, the next day, an unnamed senior doctor told me that I no longer needed the expert care & attention of hospital, & that my GP, who was under less pressure could deal with my case. They discharged me with a double strength dose of the same antibiotic but with no instructions as to what I should do if it didn’t work.

When the course finished, I was still getting worse, so I contacted my GP, who gave me a different antibiotic and on finding that my infection markers were higher than when I was discharged, immediately sent me back to hospital. I was admitted to Ward 101.

Next day, the same senior doctor came to see me. They actually told me off for letting my GP send me back to hospital! They said infection markers weren’t everything, & that they were discharging me again. They  completely ignored my list of strange (to me) unconnected symptoms – other than those connected to my eyes (double blurred vision / sensitivity to light / inability to open them fully / headaches behind the eyes). They told me without any suggestion of urgency, to “book an eye test”. I left the hospital in utter despair. I could see that they either didn’t know, or didn’t see the need to find out, what was wrong with me. I could think of no one else with more knowledge & experience to help me than senior hospital doctors.

I went back to my GP’s care. The most likely outcome being that my condition would worsen, & I would be sent back to Acute Assessment.

Fortunately, I saw an older, more experienced, doctor who ordered a further blood test. On telling me its, still high, results, she then went through all my symptoms with me again. She saw a possible cause, & arranged an immediate consultation / blood test. Within an hour she had arranged an appointment with Ophthalmology for later the same day, & had prescribed urgent medication to start at once.

The Ophthalmologist confirmed her diagnosis of “Giant Cell Arteritis” plus possible “Polymyalgia Rheumatica” – saying that it was one of the few conditions that they treated as urgent due to the side effect of blindness. He also arranged an urgent appointment with Rheumatology. Both specialists handed me leaflets about the illness. I am still undergoing hospital tests to establish the extent of any complications that may have developed due to the delays that I suffered.

Mercifully, I seem to have escaped without any of the major side effects, despite the considerable delay when my condition was undiagnosed. If I had – who can say what might then have happened?

I realise that the health service is under unprecedented pressure but feel that when a GP refers someone for more expert investigation, the senior staff in the “Acute Assessment” ward should go through that person’s history & symptoms with an open mind.

Departments of the hospital need to better communicate over such, apparently fairly rare conditions (roughly 22 cases per 100,000 primarily in over 50s – according to the printed leaflet that I was given). Couldn’t some sort of computerised system be used to cross check untypical symptoms against rarer conditions? It would help everyone. Otherwise, better liaison between departments seems the way forward.

I ask that the individual in question be given further training, and that systems be reviewed to, hopefully, avoid a recurrence of my horrible treatment.

If I had been diagnosed and treated sooner, surely it would actually have saved the NHS both time & money.