Bad customer care at eye clinic dept

Tracey, if you are really dissatisfied can you go back to your GP and ask to be referred elsewhere. I'm on the verge of doing this, once I get my left eye sorted (possibly privately if it can't wait). It's disgusting how they treat people who are already very worried, and yes the NHS will let you suffer for lack of resources to see you quickly enough / sort out the admin of getting you seen . Look your hospital up on the NHS website, there is a feedback section you can read up on different hospitals. Although they may all be the same...I hope not.

Update...actually I have two updates.
1. I got an appointment this morning for more laser in 2 weeks, this was made last Friday (after I'd raised the concern that I'd be waiting for six weeks) so I think someone at the hospital had realised they'd made a mistake, and booked me in. Would have been nice if they'd told me and saved me from worrying all weekend but hey ho.

2. I saw the private consultant again and his take on things was MUCH more positive. It was definitely worth paying the money to see him and ask as many questions as I wanted. He thinks the retinopathy is treatable, and not as bad as the other consultant made out. He doesn't think I'm in danger of losing my sight, if I have the treatment. I may need a good few sessions of laser, especially on my left eye, but he thinks this will sort it, and if I keep my bg's controlled no reason why I can't go on to have a baby once it's stabilised. He said he would have recommended not to wait 6 weeks for more laser if I hadn't got the appointment through today, but as I have then it's ok.


After seeing the private consultant I am very relieved - things are definitely not as bad as I thought! I don't know why the NHS consultant panicked me so much, certainly the fact that you don't have time for them to explain things properly doesn't help. So she dropped in words like 'florid' and 'high risk' which I may have jumped to conclusions on, eg high risk just means the retinopathy needs to be treated as it is becoming sight threatening NOT that I am at high risk of going blind in the near future!
Florid means there are lots of new vessels - but again, nothing they can't treat in the majority of cases.

It was definitely worth the money to see the private doctor, so in a way it's good that I didn't get the 2nd laser appointment last week as otherwise I wouldn't have seen him, and would have been fretting a lot more. I'll remember next time I see the NHS consultant that she perhaps isn't the best at seeing things in a positive light /reassuring the patient.

Its reassuring the doctor today said that if I keep my blood sugar controlled from now on the retinopathy has every chance of not returning, post laser. I am now on a mission to slay this beast! I've had a horrible, panicky week - but things are finally looking up a little.

good

Hi the_anticarb

Just to say that I had about 6 laser sessions in 1997/98 and the retinopathy has been stable ever since. Hopefully yours will be too.

Great stuff AC!

I am so glad you now feel reassured anticarb. I am sure you did the right thing for you in the circumstances.

I thought the clinic you mentioned sounded familiar so I looked it up and found i twas one of those where my consultant also works He is excellent at his job but because of the lack of time it takes patients quite a while to get to know him well enugh to trust him. When the do they don't want to see anyone else but the cost of contiuous treatment privately would be out of the reach of most of us.
I think this lack of time for speaking to patients and counselling them is universal across the NHS. understandably, they have to treat a lot of patients. Pehaps there is scope for some advisory service at a lower level than consultant. Maybe this could form a useful part of a Registrar's training. Most of us are left to find out for ourselves and muddle our own way through.

Hope things go better for you from now on.

Moorfields has an advisory phone line staffed by nurses, I found the nurse I spoke to did not know enough about my issue which regarded pregnancy, diabetes and retinopathy, to give a useful answer, but that's not to say other people wouldn't find them useful, or I may find them useful in the future if my query's not as complex! You don't need to be a patient at moorfields to use it. I don't have the number, but it's on the moorfields website.