Chronic pain patients who face a yearlong wait to see a doctor
PATIENTS living with chronic pain are being forced to wait up to a year for appointments with NHS specialists, according to a Mail on Sunday investigation.
Those referred to hospital clinics are usually in agony from back, neck, hip or nerve problems. Pain can be so debilitating that some even attempt suicide.
But trusts are struggling to cope with increasing demand, and services being cut or transferred into the community in some areas.
A Freedom of Information request to NHS trusts in England revealed that the longest single wait for an appointment was 60 weeks, by a patient at Devon Partnerships NHS Trust. The average wait for all patients at the Trust was 27 weeks.
In total, 47 of the 80 trusts that responded to The Mail on Sunday’s request indicated that at least one patient had waited more than six months for an appointment.
Patients also waited more than a year for an initial consultation in Walsall, Harrogate, Shrewsbury and at the 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, a mental health trust in the North West.
The average waiting time for all patients was more than three months at trusts in West Hertfordshire, Har- rogate, Bristol, West Sussex and Medway. However, most said that urgent cases could be seen within a week if necessary.
In some cases, such as in Walsall, the wait was partly due to patients themselves cancelling appointments or failing to turn up.
Dr Chris Jenner, a consultant at the London Pain Clinic and Charing Cross Hospital, said no one should be on the list for more than six months. He added: ‘Pain is just one aspect of what they are going through. The suffering that goes along with it has a psychological effect and can cause depression.’
Katie Adams, 28, who suffers stomach pain caused by endometriosis and agonising leg pain linked to a bladder operation, waited several weeks for an initial check-up at Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent, in April 2014 – but then two further appointments were cancelled. Ms Adams, from Herne Bay, Kent, said: ‘I tried to kill myself because it got too much, and I had to quit my job. I dread waking up as I don’t know if I’ll be able to feel my legs. ‘When I called the Trust to complain, I was told that “doctors are entitled to take holidays”.’ The East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust said that it was unable to comment.