What’s the view on using people you know to help get referrals to better specialists in another area than are available where you live?

I feel like I’m suddenly supporting Lansley and his hateful health bill….

You pay your NI each month like everybody else – so you have just as much right to see them as the next person, regardless of their geographical location.

My opinion is that helping you and yours with medical treatment the best way you can is natural

The fact that the ability exists is the issue not whether or not you take the opportunity

do it. it’s merely a shortcut to what you want and if you tried hard enough by standard means would probably get eventually, so you’re actually saving the NHS time and money.

Sorry, should have made clear: it’s still within the NHS, just would be at another hospital (ironically near to where I used to live).

Am going to the GP tomorrow to make him write me a referral to a specified name I have been given by Mrs North’s boss….

Fine. No issue with that beyond the fact its the shouty middle classes who get the best service.

Its a step most people could do – find the name of a Doc they want to see and ask for a referral to them.

TJ – you are right. Having the skills to be persistent to get what ypu want should not be the differentiating factor for patients receiving the best care available.

i struggle with this, as I believe very much in important tenets of the NHS – free at the point of use and everyone treated equally. But, sadly, the resource of the service at a specific level does not always provide for that.

Oh, I assume simply seeing my GP and saying “Please refer me to X” is enough?

Saw GP this morning. Didn’t leave until he’d agreed to send a referral to a different (named) consultant.

Thanks all..!

Glad you got your result

TJ – you are right. Having the skills to be persistent to get what ypu want should not be the differentiating factor for patients receiving the best care available.

But it is (as is questioning your diagnosis consistently) and to give the opposite advice is unhelpful (to put it politely). Best advice, do not be passive with the medical profession – question and be persistent. The medical profession is no different from any other in that respect.

Fine. No issue with that beyond the fact its the shouty middle classes who get the best service.

So bash those who stand up for themselves in the face of an inefficient and impersonal public service that doesn’t deliver what is promised(in my personal experience). You don’t have to be middle class to be ‘shouty’ (sloppy emotive choice of wording making it clear the posters personal prejudices), making the best of a bad system is open to everyone who makes the effort.

SJ +1 and sadly from personal experience absolutely essential.

Fine. No issue with that beyond the fact its the shouty middle classes who get the best service.

well my parents live in a council house (they don’t own it) and my mother is very adept at getting my fathers heart operations done in London not the local hospital, she does this by knowing the first names of the consultants and more importantly the consultants secretaries and being persistent but not ‘shouty’ with regular letters and follow up phone calls. this means when the lesser local hospital that wants to do one thing (even though the better hospital thinks different) decides to “put on file”* the london consultants recommendations/date for the op the op still gets done at the best hospital.

like any service if you start shouting you certainly don’t get served quicker.

*the letter was literally filed away and ignored.

don’t want to diss the NHS though, lots of very dedicated people doing a hard job.

So, this is in danger of turning into an NHS fight.

If one is to be dispassionate, and simply see patients and numbers, then it’s easy enough to allocate resource on a geographic (or whatever) basis.

But, the minute one turns the telescope and sees the individual – especially if it’s oneself or a loved one – then no longer do we see a grand national service, but an ineffective system of bureaucratic obfuscation.

It’s the normal dilemma, and one on which politicians play very well.

For me, it’s simple: I first saw someone who is good, but not an expert at what I need. I’ve now got a referral to see an expert with – I hope – skills much closer to those required.

I hope, in the long term, that getting a better answer now, will be beneficial all round.

Thanks again.