Under My Skin a short blog explaining the 4 sessions of Neuromodulation in preparation for the implant.

It took me a year to persuade the local CCG to refer me, even though we all agreed I did not need their approval?

It took a further 6 months to be called to see the consultant. Only to discover I was on the list for the wrong clinic. Thank goodness I was allowed to still be seen.

Another ‘assessment’ by psychotherapist and specialist nurse to approve me for the programme. This was an appointment made with 24 hours notice as my name had been ‘lost in the system’.  

So now 2 years on I might be on the waiting list currently running at 18 weeks. I hope I am on it sometime. The MDT meet, then write to us and copy GP, once we are approved. So it could be a while yet.

The 4 week programme then, is a good way of keeping the patients off the waiting list but at the same time engaged in the project and testing the resolve to make changes and improvements to pain management.

That is cynical but when I chatter to the other 5 the consensus is the same. But I am  lucky . Others have waited considerably longer. They have come via Newcastle, Canterbury, Kent, Essex and London. But at least one patient has waited considerably less. Its all about persistence and postcode.  I think in a way it must be thus. Expectations of the NHS are so high. That must be managed. The sheer cost and ongoing expense of such long term treatment has to be carefully evaluated and those delivering have to be accountable in some meaningful way.  

I don’t know what happens everywhere else.  In the USA I guess its all insurance claims and ever increasing premiums.  The Obama Healthcare package I gather is making that accessible for those that cannot. Australia always seems to be the brain drain or doctor drain. Wonder how it is there. Young doctors newlyqualified, my awesome god-daughter is one, I gather are keen to leave UK and head to the Southern Hemisphere. Why? The imposition of Mr J Hunt’s new working contract. But they are our clever kids. The ones who were top of their schools. Then we’ve spent so much on training them for 5, 6, 7 years then….we make it so horrible they want to take their brains and skills away.  This is nuts. What can we do to sort it?