"I felt alone and scared"

I woke up in the early hours 3am with excruciating pain across my lower back, and especially in my left kidney, no position provided any relief for the pain and I was rolling on the floor crying and could hardly breathe for it. As well as this, I was vomiting, very cold and could not urinate properly, only passing tiny little dribbles.

I called NHS 111 to hopefully at least get an out of hours GP appointment as I had never experienced anything like this before and it was quite frightened.

Well eventually a nurse came on the line and told me to wait and go to my GP which opens in 5 hours. I lay on the floor covered in sick until my friend got up for work and helped me call the GP at 8.30.

The GP told me to come right down, gave me pain relief, and sent me straight to hospital. Even the GP thought it was terrible I had just been left in so much pain.

I ended up in hospital most of the week, with IV antibiotics and required surgery to remove the kidney stone causing the blockage.

I think it is terrible that you can leave someone in that amount of pain without offering an appointment. Having been an NHS nurse previously for 14 years this is something I would have never done. Even I felt alone and scared, imagine if this was an elderly person on their own.