I think telephone consultations are really useful for if you’ve got a smaller issue and you could explain it over the phone. But I’ve not needed to use that yet. But I think dad had to make an appointment, and there weren’t any slots free, and so he said, “Is there any telephone slots free?” And actually there weren’t any either, so it all seems to be booked up pretty quickly.

I think something like a live chat with your GP could also work. I don’t know if that would be quicker for them than doing it all over the phone, or if that would take longer or how that would work, but I think that could be helpful.

So, you mentioned that you saw lots of different doctors?

Yeah.

Maybe up to about ten. Did you ever see the same one twice during that time?

I’d say probably a couple of times I saw the same one twice. But even then because sometimes they were at large intervals when they couldn’t always remember because obviously they see lots of different patients every day.

So would it have been helpful at all to have seen the same on every time?

I think it really would have been. Or maybe, because of course you sometimes need the second opinion, then maybe a couple, but just someone who knew what was going on. And, because of course it was quite complicated the places I was going, and the different reasons why and everything, it would have been good to have something like a plan drawn up of what their aims were.

Yeah. And you mentioned you kept the notes?

Yeah.

Were you able to get the notes from the GP or your mum and dad were able to get them, how did that work?

The notes were justafter they had done their appointment, then I just asked forif they happened to be typing away at the time or something, then I’d ask just for a print-out of what they’d written or something, and they were more than happy to give that to me.

So you asked yourself did you?

Yeah. And it really helped because then you could give that to the other doctors, and they could have a quick scan through and see what they thought.
And I think within the practice, though, they’re quite good at looking through people’s kind of recent appointments and things. But the appointment system happened to be all changing at the time, and so it was always good to have a hard copy to hand.

So you always asked every time, “Could I have a copy of that?”

Yeah.

I was just in so much pain and after, as I say, when they did the ultrasound, I got taken down to A&E and I wentI ended up having to go back a couple of weeks later actually. It was the GP that advised me to go back.

To go back to the hospital through A&E?

Through A&E. And I ended up being admitted, and because they still weren’t sure what it was. But they said, “Look, if we admit you, then you’re going to get a faster you’re going to get a closer appointment with the other hospital,” which they had to transfer me to, the larger hospital in the partnership, where they had a specialist gastroenterologist.

Well, in-between times, because we hadn’t heard anything from the smaller or the bigger hospital, then I went back to the GP. And the GP actually at, during the consultation rang up, I can’t remember who she rang up someone from the Trust, and said, “Look, I’ve got a patient here whose inflammatory markers have been raised, and you’ve notyou’ve said you’ll do something, and you’ve not given them any follow-up.” And she said, “Look if it gets” this is the GP, said, “Look if it gets any worse, then go down to the A&E at the bigger hospital, and because we mightif you’re admitted there, then you’re likely to be seen quicker.”

It’s again this kind of idea of playing the system. And so in fact we did a couple of days later when it justit got so bad, and theyI think this must have been about, I can’t remember what time of night it was, it was about ten or eleven o’clock at night. And I was in there, and they werethey did blood tests on me but the blood tests they seemed to do there, they did a lot more of them, and they were far more thorough than at the other hospital I’d been to.
And also because they were open they had a twenty four hour paediatric A&E, and they also had a twenty four hour pathology lab, and so they were able to get my blood test results back to me there and then. Kind of it was either”Stay here for a couple of hours, and we’ll see what we can do,” or, “because we don’t want you going home like that.”

I think it’s really important that, despite only having kind of one thousand I think it’s one thousand two hundred school nurses for the nineteen thousand schools in England, that the school nurses really get involved in the schools and kind of make themselves approachable for people.

So whether that may beI think sometimes people find if they’re coming in to do like a weekly slot, then that becomes a bit stigmatised and people find it a bit difficult to go along to the school nurse. But if you’re able to kind of contact them as well, kind of by email or by phone or something in your own time.

The school nurse?

Yeah. Then they might be able to play a bigger part, but obviously are limited people and limited hours, which is always limiting in these situations.

So are you aware if there’s a school nurse at your school or?

There is, and I know her mainly because she used to be a teaching assistant at my primary school. She has come into assembly to do her kind of school nurse presentations. “I am a school nurse, this is what I do,” about three or four years ago. And of course I’ve seen her doing vaccinations and things every year. But, apart from that, there is very little support. In fact I’m not quite sure if she’s actually still there, but she used to be quite active, and she used to pop into school every now and again. But I’ve not seen her recently.

Did you know her to be approachable or?

She was hardly ever around. So, apart from doing vaccinations, and I think she was going to start a kind of school nurse surgery once a month, but I didn’t actually hear what came of that.

And you mentioned that what you would like is, if you were phoning to have to make an appointment, to explain what the problem is, so that a doctor in the practice who’s more specialised in that particular problem couldyou could then see that…

Yeah, because I know lots of theand in fact I think it’s now on the practice website now lots of the doctors have extra qualifications in certain areas. Or have a particular interest in certain areas, or they provide additional services, or do minor surgery in certain areas. I think that would be really helpful.

Yeah. So you would prefer to see a particular doctor who’s more specialised in what’s wrong, instead of the same one every time, or how would you think?

I think that would be logical because I know you have a family doctor, you have your named GP but it’svery few are the times when I’ve actually seen my named GP.

I think sometimes, and I think itI really saw it at one of the conferences I went to recently. Doctors get so absorbed in their kind of primary care/secondary care/tertiary care, that actually they don’t always see the benefits of peer support. And when you areif they are going in to schools and talking to young people, and if they have a good health education, then they can support each other too.

Young people?

Yeah. And I think it’s important that when they do have a silly question that actually they won’t need to go to the GP, they won’t need to ring up, they won’t need to Skype a GP because it might be answered by their friend. They might say, “Oh I’ve had that, it’s just a bug going round” or something, or whatever it might be.

So young people talking to each other as well?

Yeah.