"Amazing responses"

About 9 weeks ago I discovered an infection on my ankle. It was tender & red, so I sought advice from a pharmacist who prescribed ointment.

When this had no effect I filled out a Klinik form, within 3 hours I had a request for photos which I sent - I had a phone call 3 hours later and was put on a 10 day course of antibiotics. These too, had no appreciable effect, so I filled in another form which resulted in another request for photos. These were duly sent & this time I was given a face-to-face appointment with a senior member of the team.

This was a most pleasant experience, it was as if we were old friends. And when I mentioned another minor issue, acid reflux, asking if I should fill in a form about it, the response was "We can deal with that right now". And it was indeed dealt with very satisfactorily, even to the extent of the suggestion that I should think of my oesophagus like a gutter and raise the head of the bed a few inches with a piece of 4 by 2!

Confirming that the problem is a venous ulcer, I was prescribed antibiotic cream, which the website says should show improvement after 2 or 3 days. It didn't so after 8 days, on Friday morning, I again submitted another Klinik form. I had a text from the same member of the team within 15 minutes saying they had sent another prescription to the pharmacy for oral antibiotics! The instructions were to contact 111 if it got worse over the weekend and "if no better by Monday pls contact us again"

It seemed to be OK on Monday, but by Tuesday it had again caused me to require paracetamol to get back to sleep when I woke in the middle of the night. So I filled in yet another form. This resulted in a phone call from the surgery within a couple of hours asking me to attend that afternoon, which I did.

I now have an appointment booked for the Dressings Clinic so they can see if there is an underlying problem that is deeper than the obvious surface infection.

I cannot stress too highly how efficient and timely the whole process has been up to now, even though it hasn't yet resulted in the infection clearing up. But it is what we have come to expect from Carn to Coast in our dealings with them.