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"10 months without medication to manage my pain"

About: St George's Hospital (Tooting) / General medicine St Helier Hospital / General medicine St Thomas' Hospital / General medicine

(as the patient),

I was supposed to be referred to pain management at St George's by St Thomas's Hospital, London in June last year. After waiting 5 months I contacted the pain nurses at Gassiot House and was informed the referral would be done again. By December I still hadn't heard so I visited my GP and he referred me to my local hospital St Heliers as a priority and to date I still haven't heard anything from either hospital. I am living with many chronic pain conditions and am in excruciating pain on a daily basis. Having exhausted all treatments for my conditions I was offered one more medication to try but it has to be prescribed by pain management. Therefore I have been unmedicated for one condition for 10 months. I think this is a disgrace and I feel incredibly let down by the NHS. Having worked in it as a Nurse I always believed it would look after me if I ever got sick, and sadly this is not the case. My wait continues and in the meantime I am almost confined to my home.

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Responses

Response from St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 7 years ago
St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Submitted on 02/02/2017 at 15:54
Published on Care Opinion at 15:59


We are sorry to read of your experience. If you would like the Patient Advice and Liaison Service to look into your concern please contact the team.

PALS at St. George's Healthcare NHS Trust is available on 020 8725 2453 or by email on pals@stgeorges.nhs.uk

The telephone is busy but PALS make every effort to contact patients and to clarify what is happening for the patient.

Response from St Helier Hospital 7 years ago
St Helier Hospital
Submitted on 06/02/2017 at 11:35
Published on nhs.uk on 07/02/2017 at 01:38


Thank you for taking the time to get in touch and raise this with us. We are sorry to hear you have experience a long wait for your referral. While we cannot assist with the initial referral made to another hospital, please contact the Pain Team on 020 8296 2864 regarding your referral to St Helier Hospital. There is additional information about our Chronic Pain service on our website: www.epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk/chronic-pain.

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Update posted by ecca2 (the patient)

Thanks. I contacted PALS today and they are currently looking into this however I will also contact pain management at St Heliers tomorrow

Regards

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