Deciding to first see healthcare professionals about a urogynaecological condition

This section covers:

  • Approaches before seeking medical help for urogynaecological symptoms
  • Reasons for seeing healthcare professionals
  • Reasons for not seeing healthcare professionals
  • First appointments about urogynaecological problems

In this section we use the terms:
Pelvic organ prolapse (prolapse) is a condition in which pelvic organs, like the bladder and uterus (sometimes called the womb), move down or slip out of place and may bulge into the vagina.

Urinary incontinence is the unintentional loss of wee/urine. There are other bladder symptoms that do not involve incontinence, such as needing to urinate a lot, getting up at night a lot for a wee, or difficulties emptying the bladder.

UTIs (Urinary Tract Infections) are when bacteria infect the system that stores urine (such as the bladder). There are other types of conditions that can involve bladder irritation and pain, such as interstitial cystitis (also called bladder pain syndrome).

The first healthcare professional that people usually saw about urogynaecological concerns was their GP, or a nurse at a GP surgery. Women who had concerns soon after birth sometimes talked to their midwives first. Laura, Jasmine, Rebecca, Jordan, and Jan had seen out-hours and urgent care GPs about urinary tract infections (UTIs).

Though she has since had good experiences of urogynaecological services, Rosie was initially put off by embarrassment, knowing health services are busy and feeling that her symptoms were not as “horrific” as others’ health problems.

I guess two reasons I think probably for quite a lot of women there’s that kind of embarrassment factor and I think, I think that’s probably the prime, prime reason and I guess secondly maybe the not sure where, like where to go or not wanting especially in the last couple of years not wanting to put additional pressure on health services and like I have to say if that had been my only symptom, I probably wouldn’t have gone back to the doctor but because I was in so much pain, I kind of, and this was the secondary part of that but I think and just the not knowing that the services are there and are available and actually the service, in my experience, the service that’s been provided has been incredible and I wouldn’t have known about it at all, and I guess also when you hear about some women’s experiences and how horrific things can be post giving birth, I guess, you know, having a bit of incontinence is like the least of some people’s worries so I guess, you know, when you’ve got people with kind of prolapsed vaginas and all and all sorts you kind of think ‘Oh well, you know, if I’m just wetting myself a little bit, you know, why, why would I worry about that,’ kind of thing maybe.

 

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Deciding to see a healthcare professional about urogynaecological symptoms was straightforward for some people, but taking that first step could be very difficult or uncertain for others. As Jacqueline said, “it’s not an easy thing to go in and speak to anybody about” such personal and sensitive topics. Fiona described building herself up to “bite the bullet” and ask for medical help, and Catherine described this as a “daunting” step.

Some women, like Jenny, Pauline, and Kerry, who had prolapse, saw a GP very soon after developing symptoms. For others, it took a while to realise something was different; as Jenni explained, urinary incontinence “just sort of crept up on me”. You can read more about urogynaecological signs and symptoms here.

Others decided not to seek medical help and tried to put their concerns to the back of their minds, like Emma who had prolapse symptoms for nine years before she saw a GP. Not everyone we spoke to had seen a healthcare professional about their urogynaecological symptoms.

Sabrina hasn’t seen a doctor about urinary incontinence. At first, she felt it was “just like ‘I’ve had a baby, it happens’”. Now her symptoms are impacting on her more, she is planning on seeing her GP.

I hadn’t thought to see a doctor before, to be honest. Just because as I said, I just thought it was, this was it and that I’ve got to deal with it. I am gonna go to a doctor and say just because it’s got, it’s not just that, it’s now got an impact on, on me, it’s not just wetting myself, it’s, I don’t do half the things I want to do, because I’m worried about it. So I am, yeah, I definitely want to go to see somebody else and try and help and see if there’s anything that they can recommend or give me, or yeah. Cos, I don’t, I don’t want to be that mum that just sits there and watches. I wanna be a part of it.

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Approaches before seeking medical help for urogynaecological symptoms

Before seeing a healthcare professional, women sometimes tried to manage their symptoms themselves through lifestyle changes like self-directed pelvic floor exercises, using shop-bought pads and taking over-counter cystitis or UTI remedies. Freia, who has urinary incontinence, described having a “mentality” based on her upbringing and generational attitudes; she explained, “I think, especially in the recent pandemic, that you need to do the most you can yourself before you go”.

Eve, Mary X, Hope, and Beth looked online for information on symptoms and possible diagnoses before going to a doctor. Alice got advice from a relative with a health background and started bladder training before seeing her GP.

Hope looked online for information about her symptoms before contacting her GP. The doctor agreed she probably had prolapse, and signposted her to some online resources about pelvic floor exercise.

Well I think after, after perhaps a couple of months of experiencing these symptoms I obviously suspected it could possibly be a prolapse and I think the first thing I would do would have been to look up an NHS website, possibly other websites that I felt were-, were reliable and it did lead me to think that probably a prolapse was what I was experiencing and that gave me some information. I probably after a while, I decided I would speak to my GP about it, which I did. It was a telephone appointment, as so many are in the time of the Covid pandemic and the GP told me, suggested that she agreed with the diagnosis, it probably was a prolapse and she said, she implied that pelvic floor exercises were kind of more or less all that could be done certainly for the time being so- she, I think she pointed me in the direction of a YouTube video showing how to do the pelvic floor exercises. Also, the NHS website I think has a link to a video talk, describing pelvic floor exercises, so all that is quite useful.

 

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Reasons for seeing healthcare professionals

For those we spoke to who had seen a healthcare professional about urogynaecological symptoms, the main reasons were to get a diagnosis, advice, and treatment to improve things.

There was sometimes a particular ‘trigger’ or ‘turning point’ for seeking medical help. Pauline’s prolapse affected her job and she couldn’t risk losing her income. For Fiona, her prolapse affected her sex life which was particularly important to her in the run up to her wedding. The final straw for Chelsea was when she couldn’t attend a family wedding because of recurrent UTIs. Georgina and Alice wanted to be less restricted by their symptoms when the Covid-19 lockdowns ended.

For others, the trigger to seek help was a worsening of symptoms or a general sense that ‘enough was enough’. Minnie explained, “It had got to the point where I had to do something”. Freia had felt a lot of “pressure” from friends and family to do something about her urinary incontinence, which influenced her decision to see a GP. Some people read about possible conditions online [link to TS25] and went to see doctors to find out more and get a diagnosis.

Sharon felt she had the “headspace” to see a doctor about her symptoms after returning to work from maternity leave.

I developed urinary incontinence and became aware of it when I started running about six to seven months but I think it was starting to be an issue about four to six months postpartum and it was only when I went back to work that I sought help because I had a few incidents in the office where I stood up and I just had a total loss of lack of bladder control and I think for me at thirteen months postpartum I’d act-, you know, I had some headspace because at work, you know, you, you can go to the loo by yourself, you can make coffee by yourself, you can think about yourself a bit more and I thought, ‘oh I need to go see a doctor about this because it’s affecting, you know, work me.’ So it, it’s probably a common story, it took me far too long to seek help but I, I think if I had had a better conversation at that six-week postpartum check about what to be mindful of and aware of, I would have been better served and probably would have sought help sooner.

 

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Many of the people we talked to had seen GPs about urinary tract infections (UTIs), which could be one-offs or, for some, repeated and persistent. For some people, seeing a GP about UTI symptoms, having urine tested, and getting antibiotic treatment had been quite straightforward.

For others who kept having problems with UTIs returning or symptoms never going away with short-course antibiotic treatment, this pattern often led them to want a different approach from their doctors. This included seeing UTIs or UTI-like symptoms as an ongoing issue, and wanting more tests and investigations into the causes of the problem.

After having urinary tract infections every week or so for nearly nine months, Fiona asked her GP for some investigations.

I think the best example I would was obviously suffering with them the whole year and continuously going up into the doctors every two weeks, every week for months and months and then I just thought, “No.” You know, I was, my life was very busy, my work life is very busy and it got to the point where I thought, ‘No, there’s definitely something wrong’ and I went up again and he just looked at me and just went, “Oh I’ll give you these antibiotics,” and I went, “No,” I said, “this has been going on, look at my records and you can see I’ve been suffering for nearly eight, nine months and you have not even asked to investigate this any further. I need you to do something and that’s when they did all the blood tests and they come back and they said, “Oh yeah, you’re not producing Vitamin D,” and since then I obviously I take my Vitamin D and I’ve been quite lucky touch wood, so yeah.

 

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An unrelated healthcare appointment was sometimes the prompt to talk to a GP about urogynaecological symptoms. Jenni explained, “it’s very easy to accept things and I think if I hadn’t gone to see the [health MOT] nurse last month and she hadn’t said to me, “Come on, you can do something about it,” I would probably have gone on accepting it [urinary incontinence] for a bit longer. Until probably I would have got really upset”. It was Kezia’s osteopath who first suggested she might have prolapse when she described her symptoms.

The nurse at Catherine’s smear test suggested she see a doctor about her concerns.

I went to my first smear test after having my daughter and then the nurse was like, “Oh have you got any gynae problems?” I was like, “Well I haven’t really got any gynae problems but I’ve kind of got this bulge and I don’t quite know what it is, you know, it’s not caused me any discomfort or pain but I think I should get it seen to” and she kind of said, “Yeah actually I think you should like it, while you’re here book in to see a doctor-, female doctor,” which I did after the appointment and basically it wasn’t until that appointment that I got diagnosed with the prolapse.

 

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Reasons for not seeing healthcare professionals

Embarrassment and stigma about urogynaecological symptoms, body parts and sex lives were reasons why some people had ‘put off’ seeing healthcare professionals. Clare thought it had been easier to talk about “a personal aspect of her life” like urinary problems when she had a good rapport with healthcare professionals.

Phoebe and Catherine said it takes “a lot of courage” to talk about sensitive topics to healthcare professionals. Some of Fiona’s symptoms reminded her of losing a close family member to bowel cancer, and she wondered whether “maybe that’s why I put it off a little bit more”. Vicky worries that embarrassment and the fear of being dismissed might particularly hold older women back from seeing help.

Anna thinks there is a stigma about having to regularly use health services for recurrent UTIs and that many people see UTIs as “mild problems”.

I think it’s also, also something very big culturally, you know, where it really feels like a weakness to be ill and just, you know, I’ve just got a lot of shame about having such a constant seemingly mild problem that causes me so many problems. Yeah, because there’s definitely a lot of culture, you know, my family, things like that people think I haven’t seen a GP for thirty years or, you know, things like that and it’s very unhelpful that kind of, that kind of way of looking at our bodies I suppose. I think that that really has an effect on people who, where that’s just not their reality where they can go around as if they don’t have a body, you know, yeah. That definitely played into my relationship with my husband I think as a as a man who doesn’t have any health problems, I think he definitely has this where he just sort of thinks, ‘How can it be such a constant thing in your life?’ you know, I think he just doesn’t, doesn’t understand.

 

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The fear of what might happen at the appointment was another reason for not seeking medical help. Jordan highlighted that having and seeking help for urogynaecological symptoms could be especially challenging for those who have experienced sexual trauma.

Jessy is “avoiding” seeing a GP about urinary incontinence as she doesn’t want an internal examination after past bad experiences: “I’m basically traumatised… I’m terrified, I’m just like ‘mm, nah, maybe another day, nah. No’”.

Jessy hasn’t seen a doctor about her urinary incontinence, as she expects she would need an internal examination. She had distressing previous experiences of internal examinations and having a coil fitted.

[In past internal examinations and coil fittings I’ve had] they move your parts inside or, or they pull things to, inside you but then I don’t know when are they going to finish so I need somebody to be talking to me and saying, “So listen, I’m doing this and it’s going to be this, it’s doing okay, it’s just be a few more minutes,” and then also to be truthful, because when they said uncomfortable, uncomfortable to me is that you give me a pinch. You pinch my cheek, that’s uncomfortable. Not, what they call uncomfortable is excruciating pain. So, the last time I had, not this time, the previous time I had my, my Mirena coil inserted I was in such an agony, and they said to me, “Oh if you’re feeling much pain we will stop.” And then they didn’t stop, I was sobbing.
 
I find it [internal examinations] very undignified, you know, you know, I have to take my pants and then they, of course they’re not seeing me naked, I know, of course they put a thing for, just the fact that you have to put your feet on those metal reins and open it up, and then pretend nothing is happening. And then they insert that thing that sometimes is very cold, uncomfortable.
 
And I’m terrified, I’m just like mm, nah, maybe another day, nah. No. So I’m avoiding it [seeing a doctor about urinary incontinence], I literally avoiding it, consciously avoiding it. 
 
And it’s really worrying because I know that at some point I can actually physically force myself to just to go the doctor, but then for some other people no, and then might not be the case, and then it can cause even more problems, because-, in the long term.
 

 

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Emma hasn’t seen her doctor about urinary incontinence. Based on what happened to her mum, she expects she would be prescribed medication and she knows she doesn’t want to take this.

It’s not something I’ve been to see the GP about, but I mean I suppose partly I mean GP’s are really hard to kind of access just now, and I kind of know from my mother’s sort of experience with the same thing, you know. She was put on medication for it, but sort of side effects of it, you, so and as with any medication, it’s about weighing up, you know, the kind of risks and benefits. And I suppose really I’m not sure I would want to go on that medication until I kind of felt as if, you know, the sort of the benefit I would get with sort of weigh out the risks in terms of like sort of side effects of it.

 

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For those who thought their urogynaecological conditions were caused by pregnancy, birth and/or menopause, they felt that it was just something they had to “put up” with, alongside the many other women similarly affected. As Jasmine said, pelvic floor problems are often seen as “part of the life of being a mother”. Jenny said that “I just thought [urinary problems] was another one of those things you got when you got older.” The expectation was that healthcare professionals would also dismiss or trivialise their urogynaecological symptoms as normal and unimportant.

It could also be difficult to find time for medical appointments, especially for those with children, work, and busy lives. Catherine explained that, as a new mum, “you kind of forget a little bit about yourself”, even though the symptoms were “always in the back of my mind going ‘oh yeah, I’ve got to go to the doctors about that’”.

At first, Cynthia’s prolapse symptoms were a lower priority as she focused on looking after a new baby. She then started to feel she should accept her situation as time went on.

I was just overwhelmed by that, the kind of more immediate needs of kind of coping with that situation. And I think, you know, both really sleep deprived. My husband went back to work at, you know, two weeks later standard paternity leave. And I was then kind of struggling, you know, I was still kind of struggling to be able to walk. Struggling to breast feed, not getting any sleep. And so, actually, you know, some sort of complaints about the obstetric service or philosophising about my genital tract injuries, I suppose just didn’t seem like the top of the list [laughs]. And then as time goes on, you’re just like well I’m just living with this and how much does kind of bringing it up and talking about it really help or move us on?

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Alice thinks there are a few reasons why younger people may not seek medical help for urogynaecological symptoms.

You go to some clinics and the waiting room is full of old people. And I think ‘I know there’s younger people going to be affected by these conditions, but where are they? Where are the working age people?’ And it bothers me, it does bother me. Yeah. [laughs] I think a lot of the time incontinence and urogynae related conditions are associated with older populations. And that’s, that is terrible, okay, I guess they are maybe more affected but there are younger people out there, there are people of working age that have got conditions like that as well, and where are they? Why have we-, why are we quiet about it? We shouldn’t.
 
I know people of working age are so caught up in their own lives, getting on with their lives, that they don’t often seek the help they need when they need it. Because they haven’t got the time.

 

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Some people we talked to had felt dismissed about a previous health concern, which dampened their willingness to see a healthcare professional about urogynaecological symptoms. This was the case for Georgina who also had endometriosis (a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows in other places, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes). Past experiences of being “told to go away and get on with it” (Holly) or feeling that doctors think you are being “overdramatic” (Jane) were hard to shake off. María didn’t think a doctor would do anything or give her a referral to secondary care for urinary incontinence so “I don’t even want to spend my saliva on calling the GP”.

First appointments about urogynaecological problems

For those who had seen healthcare professionals about urogynaecological symptoms, the first appointments were important as it could reinforce or challenge their reasons behind seeking (or put off seeking) medical help.

The first appointments could be reassuring that their concerns were important and give them information about what to expect next in terms of treatment and referrals. But some people we spoke to felt they had been dismissed and overlooked, for example if they weren’t offered enough (or any) information about the condition, possible treatments and next steps.

Kerry describes the process of attending the first appointment with her GP and finding out what her symptoms meant.

I really didn’t know what it was and when you go on the internet, you go on the NHS website it says, you know, sometimes these symptoms can be caused by vaginal atrophy, can be caused by vaginal dryness, can be, bl-, bl-, there’s a whole long list of things it can be so then I want, I want somebody to actually knows about stuff to tell me which one of those things it is.
 
Because we’re in the pandemic, so the first-, what they do first of all is they give you a telephone call and that was with a man, a male doctor and I found that quite difficult to talk to a man about it. And but he said, he was lovely, and he said, “Oh yes, come down to the surgery and we’ll get you booked in,” and they had booked me in with the female GP which was much better and she was lovely, she was just very matter of fact about it. She, you know, as soon as I lay down and you get into that sort of smear position, you know, with your legs apart and your ankles together and she said, “Oh yes I can see it.” Well, that’s not what you want to hear [laughs]. But yeah. And she did an internal examination and she said, “Yes” and she said, what sort of prolapse it was because at that point I had no idea and what stage it was so I think both of those things were helpful. But once you’ve got some information then you can go away and you can read things and you can look at things.

 

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Sue Y’s first appointment with a GP left her feeling that there wasn’t much that could or would be done about her prolapse and urinary incontinence.

I don’t know whether GPs are not particularly interested and they just think, oh, you know it’s, it’s another old woman with a prolapse [exhales]. I mean, I might be entirely wrong about that. But I don’t know, I just felt almost as though I was being a little bit dismissed. ‘Oh, you know, it doesn’t look too bad, you know, you’ll be alright’ was the sort of attitude. So I sort of came away thinking ‘Oh well I, I probably will be alright’, you know. But though, of course, it wasn’t until the symptoms carried on that I thought ‘Well, actually, no, I’m not alright.’

 

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The first mention to a healthcare professional about urogynaecological concerns could leave a lasting impression and influence how willing women felt about going back at a later date. Jane recalled being told by the first GP she saw that she had UTIs because she was “obviously wiping the wrong way” and “not washing properly”. She accepted this at first and felt “humiliated”, leaving a lasting impact on her with “a lot of shame”.

After the advice Jacqueline was given didn’t help her, it was several years before she felt it was worthwhile going back to her GP again to ask for help about her prolapse.

So, having had a radical hysterectomy back in 1999, everything was going along marvellously, yes, I did have to have a hernia repair afterwards. But it had no problem at all. But became aware probably about sort of six, eight years ago that something wasn’t quite right. Went to my local GP who diagnosed a prolapse and basically sort of said, “Oh well, just go home, do pelvic floor exercises for three months and see how it goes.” Well, I did that having done that for I don’t know how many years before anyway. Went back after three months and she said, “Oh yes, it looks to be improving. Just keep going.” And that’s how it went. So, yes, I did, but progressively, you know, yes, it was affecting my bladder, you know, there was like I need to go to the loo and I need to go to the loo now, different stuff like that. So I went back probably about three years ago now, and saw another GP and she examined me and she said, “[mm] You’ve got a very bad prolapse. Nothing on this earth is going to help it you know, just by yourself doing sort of yeah, pelvic floor or anything like that. I’ll refer you.”

 

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Mehar had seen a GP many times about UTI, but when her dipstick tests stopped showing infections, her GP only offered psychological therapy. This left her questioning herself.

I can’t remember when my UTIs started just because I’ve had chronic infections since December 2013, and they’ve been random so I can’t pinpoint where the UTI specifically started from and I think I’ve also mushed it together with the periods because it’s all in the same area, so everything’s mushed together. But I would say I think I would start with the GP because that primary care right my first GP that I had. Again I would go in, do my urine samples and then they would just dipstick it and be like, “There’s nothing there and you’re fine.” Then I would be so confused because I had all the symptoms and ‘Why is it not showing up, is it because there’s nothing in there or is it just in my head?’ because that my old GP had a tendency to tell me that I need a therapist and not a consultant since I was eight years old that was her thing. Anything I went to him for he was like, “You need to see go and see a psychologist,” and he’d just refer me for therapy instead of doing further tests which also put me off because when you’re rep-, when you’re told on a, you know, regular basis that it’s in your head, there’s nothing wrong with you then you start to question that as well, especially when the dipsticks are coming up wrong, I just kept thinking maybe it is in my head because I went and I did the test and even if I have the symptoms but nothing’s showing up so maybe it’s just in my head and if I stop thinking about it it’ll disappear.
 

 

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Pauline’s first impression from a GP was that she should just put up with her prolapse. She had to insist on being examined, and thinks that the reluctance she encountered was because of NHS funding cuts.

I used to go to this doctor years ago who was-, she didn’t seem to realise that people with prolapse should be treated. Yes, so that was going back a bit, that’s going back, that’s going back a while, yeah.
 
So what happened then, were you going for an appointment-?
 
I had to go and see the top man at the surgery to get him to examine me.
 
Oh gosh, so she won’t even examine you?
 
She, she wasn’t, she didn’t even think that it was serious enough unless-, I think it was the time when the cuts started in the hospitals. You know, the cuts started?
 
Yeah, when the funding was cut, yeah.
 
Yeah, things started to be-, and people, people, well it was the NHS because they only wanted people to go to the hospital with urgent, for urgent treatment.
 
 

 

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Women we talked to who developed urogynaecological symptoms following birth had often mentioned their concerns to midwives and GPs. However, the responses, like being told to wait and see what happens (Elly, Beth) or that contraception was more of a priority (Phoebe), were sometimes off-putting. Elly couldn’t understand why her doctor wouldn’t examine her when she was worried about prolapse after birth.

Chloe feels that she should have been referred to a pelvic floor physiotherapist after giving birth.

Yeah, one thing that I think that could have been a real game-changer was that I was told a physio would see me before discharge in like when I was in hospital just after the birth and I was told a referral would be made to the pelvic floor physios and I was told all this when I was in theatre having just had some morphine and having not slept all night so it kind of went into my head but didn’t really register but I knew, I knew what a pelvic floor physio was, I knew how referrals are made, I knew all that kind of thing because of my work but no-one did come and see me and no-one did make a referral, it was missed off but all the other things were done, all the other referrals to various blood tests and things I needed were done, so it kind of felt like ‘Oh the pelvic floor referral that’s the least important bit, ah never mind, we won’t do that.’ As it happened, I walked passed a poster for a self-referral email address, took a photo of that because I was like, I really don’t want to miss out on this and sorted it out myself. 
 
If I hadn’t had the motivation or the knowledge or the knowledge that I was supposed to be seeing someone my whole story would be different like completely different because I never got a postnatal appointment with my GP, the receptionist only made an appointment with my baby and I would have fallen through the net again at that stage because no GP would ever have asked me, “How’s your pelvic floor? How are you recovering?” and I would never have got referred that way either so I very much feel like I know, you know, without blowing my own trumpet, I’m an educated motivated person who can sort that kind of thing out for myself. There are plenty of women who would not have known to go and make that referral themselves. Who wouldn’t have sorted it, who wouldn’t have had the means to do it, the time to do it, the family support to allow them to go to appointments, you know, that kind of thing. And if that had been missed I guarantee I wouldn’t be feeling as good as I do now, so I feel I’ve had a really close shave there but it all worked out in the end.

 

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Vickie asked her GP to examine her at the 6-8 week postnatal check. Her GP seemed reluctant and she initially felt “a little bit guilty” about this, but then felt “cross” that she had needed to insist.

So yeah I went in to do the check and straight away, as humans do, right, you gravitate to baby because they’re lovely and cute and they’ve got these cute chubby cheeks and whatever. And my son was asleep at the time so I said, “Actually while he’s sleeping, can I just talk to you about some of the difficulties that I’ve been having?” and he seemed quite surprised and again maybe it’s because I look younger or whatever but. So I explained that I had this dragging sensation, it doesn’t feel right and he, he qualified my situation, first kind of vaginal delivery, “No, it won’t be, I’ll have a look but-,” you know, and I think I asked three times, “I really-, would you look? Could you check for me? Because I don’t know what I’m looking for, you know, my episiotomy’s healed but has it healed? Is it that what’s causing the problem? I don’t know.” So, I went in completely ignorant, but I did have to ask him quite a few times. He then called for the chaperone, she was lovely and she was like, “Don’t worry, I had a nine and a half pound-“ you know, that kind of camaraderie, at that kind of awkward moment when people are staring down your vagina. You know, I get it, you kind of make the, the small talk. And then even, I was quite swollen at the time and I remember he didn’t, he didn’t want to perform a full, like get the speculum and he was very much, “Oh yeah okay, that’s enough,” and kind of sat down so I, I very much felt that he felt uncomfortable. And at first I felt embarrassed and a little bit guilty for making him feel uncomfortable and then I got a bit cross actually, having come away from the appointment and thought ‘You wanna be a GP mate, these are, you know, these are the things you need to do.’

 

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Those who had sought medical help during and after Covid-19 restrictions often found that there were disruptions and changes in healthcare services, it was difficult to get an appointment and it took longer to see a doctor. Jan found that her appointments tended to be shorter because of time constraints. Seeking care over the phone could be difficult too, as the doctor could not do an examination or read body language. Jenny found that using the online consult system to request antibiotics was a “nightmare”. These problems were not the same for everyone though, and Rosie appreciated that her GP examined her at a time when she knew many healthcare appointments were not in person.

Some of these problems, including long waits and cancellations, were also the case for those referred to hospital services. You can find out more here about the structure of healthcare services for urogynaecological conditions and people’s experiences of using these services.