We need help using our NHS

We need help using our NHS

Started
28 October 2022
Signatures: 73Next Goal: 100
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Why this petition matters

Started by Kay Green

FAO Darrell Gale, Director of Public Health at East Sussex County Council and Cllr Andy Batsford, Health lead at Hastings Borough Council.

We would like to know what local government can do to rescue and re-activate our health service.

We are two ESCC residents, one in Eastbourne and one in Hastings who have recently had health issues to deal with and found our GPs and NHS services both difficult to access and expensive in time as well as money. We have both seen significant rises in our phone bills, at a time when there is no spare household money. The expense was caused by long waits on the phone for GPs, hospitals and related services. This has resulted in dangerous mistakes, and we have seen health issues exacerbated by stresses and delays in accessing help.

We asked fellow residents, face to face and via social media, if their experiences were similar to ours. We received a series of distressing stories:

Travel expenses

Those who do not drive are hit with considerable travel expenses when re-directed by busy GPs to endure a long wait at A&E, only to be discharged long after the last bus and so have to use a late-night taxi; others are referred to consultant appointments in other towns; others to pharmacists out of walking distance when their local pharmacy does not stock their prescribed medications.

We appreciate the excellent work that our NHS medical staff do, and the value of their expertise but we constantly see signs that contractors and government policy-makers do not need those services, and do not understand or care about the needs of less well-off citizens.

GP surgeries are using faulty and/or badly operated online “services” that often block patients’ attempts to make appointments or make enquiries to their GPs or attached medical staff. These systems also create problems and failures for newcomers trying to register with local GPs.

Call charges

Phone systems begin with long, recorded messages – long enough for callers to have incurred call charges before they reach the part where they are told how long the call-queue is. Only then can they tell if the wait is longer than they can manage between work or school-run responsibilities. Only then can the tell if it is likely to reach a level of call-charges that they can’t afford. Messages often include a statement that the surgery is “short of staff” or “experiencing a high volume of calls”: if such things happen often, it’s hard to believe there is a plan there to provide the necessary services in full.

Inadequate service

When people do succeed in getting through on the phone, beleaguered receptionists tell patients attempting to get appointments that they can use private services instead, or direct them to NHS 111 or A&E, both of which are already over-loaded due to people using them when they cannot access doctors or social services by other means. Patients seeking a face-to-face appointment with a doctor end up getting a zoom or a phone-call if anything, and are left wondering what happens to those who do not have the technology, are not comfortable using it, or do not have a telephone in a private space.

We were very alarmed recently to hear a government minister talking about making GP appointments available “within two weeks”, when we had thought we should have a much shorter wait than that assured by mandate. Having noted publications by government ministers in recent years setting out strategies for privatizing our NHS, we fear that the current lack of access is deliberately tolerated by a government uninterested in the welfare of its citizens.

"That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital." - Noam Chomsky

We need help

We would like to know who in local government still has any influence over the standards of services offered by GPs, or the resources GP surgeries have available. Could you please take these issues to them, and let us all know what our local government is doing to protect and improve access to local health services, and the welfare of both patients and staff.

We present this letter as a petition, and hope for a public reply, detailing action you are taking, to give everyone some hope. We ask our fellow citizens to sign if they agree that improvements are urgently needed, and if they can, to please put their own stories of attempted use of NHS services in the comments.

Our need is urgent. Please help.

Kay Green 

Lorraine Murphy

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Signatures: 73Next Goal: 100
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