“A&E delays put my life at risk, then NHS staff saved me”

This blog is written by Maggie, a Just Treatment supporter based in North London.

Last September I had a kidney infection. I called 111 who advised me to go to A&E, so I headed off to my local hospital. I arrived at 8pm, and wasn’t seen until the morning. For all those hours I was sitting on a chair in a busy waiting room as my condition deteriorated, including ongoing vomiting. 

When I finally got seen in the morning, I was told I needed to go to a different A&E department as my local hospital didn’t have a urology centre which is what I needed. When I asked about how to get there, I was told they could take me by ambulance but that “it will take 3 or 4 hours”. So I opted to make the journey there independently. 

By the time I arrived at the second A&E department, I was septic and extremely unwell. I was scanned and rushed into emergency surgery as it transpired I had a blocked tube from my kidney. They inserted a stent, and I was in hospital for 9 days afterwards while the infection cleared, before being sent home with another week's intravenous antibiotics. I then had to have reconstruction surgery in January to fix the problem permanently. 

Thankfully I survived and I am now doing well. But things could have been different. The delay I experienced in A&E put my life at risk, but then the NHS also saved me via the emergency surgery. Timely treatment would have prevented sepsis, all the harm caused to me and all the costs to the NHS that resulted from my avoidable deterioration.

On top of all this, I ended up having to pay privately for the reconstructive surgery I needed in order to recover. I kept being told that it was really important for my health for this procedure to happen quickly, but the NHS also couldn't tell me when they could schedule the appointment due to the massive waiting lists. I felt I couldn’t risk sacrificing my health, so I very reluctantly went private. I ended up having the exact same surgeon at the same hospital I would have had on the NHS, but it cost £13k - money which I had to take out of my pension fund. 

My experience highlights the dangerous impacts of delays to urgent care, but also the lifesaving work that NHS staff deliver every day, under immense pressures and often terrible working conditions. My story also shows that private health providers are doing very well out of the crisis faced by our NHS. 

To stop more patients being put in life-threatening situations like me, we urgently need a different approach to healthcare. The new government must break with the failed policies of the past in order to save lives and put our NHS on the path to recovery.

This has to mean increasing resource and investment in health. Over the past decade demand has soared but real terms spending has not kept up. Our health workers are being asked to do far more with less, and this isn’t sustainable. NHS staff do not feel valued - they are leaving to take jobs in other sectors or countries and we are not able to recruit and train more people to fill the gaps. 

It’s also vital that we put a stop to the outsourcing of services which is seeing hundreds of millions of pounds being funnelled out of the public system and into the pockets of private healthcare companies. We have seen how far this has gone in some sectors, such as eye care - where nearly 60% of cataract surgeries have been outsourced, leaving NHS eye care departments underfunded and less able to cope with more complex cases.

Finally, there will only be a sustainable solution to the NHS crisis if we also look to tackle the drivers and root causes of ill health. We need to see more focus and money being put into prevention. This isn’t about rationing care - no one should be denied the treatment they need, when they need it - but about acting early in order to manage demand and stop things from getting to crisis point.

I hope that the new Health Secretary and his government will learn from the mistakes of their predecessors and listen to the concerns of NHS patients and staff. My story, and the stories of so many others across the country, shows what’s at stake if they do not get this right. To save lives, we need increased investment and an end to dangerous outsourcing.