How to shout at the NHS

Crucially, the little pump had to be removed immediately after that. The doctor had been very clear: I really, really had to go see my GP and get those bandages changed a day later. High as a kite, I turned up as promised, and was told by a receptionist as welcoming as cholera that they had no records of anything, so couldn’t help me.

I called the hospital and they, too, had no idea who I was, or what I was meant to do. I desperately showed the thingamajig to the staff but still, there was apparently nothing to be done. Amazingly, the problem seemed to be that they hadn’t been forewarned, and consequently didn’t have any of the right plasters in stock.

Now apoplectic, I marched into the nearest pharmacy, asked them for a pair of each size of plaster they had – my own medical Noah’s Ark – then marched back into the surgery. Would one of these do? To skip to the end: yes, I did end up getting my wound dressing changed, but not before fighting through several more layers of faff. 

What would have happened if I’d been less assertive, though? I’ve asked myself that question several times since then. I’ve always been too gobby for my own good, my Frenchness means I’m pretty direct, and both my dad and several of my relatives work in public health. I’ve never had any real issues with the NHS because I know what to say, when to say it, and when to repeat it again and again, until someone actually listens. Is that really where the bar should be?

I thought about this most recently when reading about the awful case of Ryan White, a young man who died of suicide in 2024 while waiting for treatment for his ADHD. Though diagnosed in 2022, he never gained access to medication and ended up falling through the cracks. 

His story stuck with me because our journeys were similar: his diagnosis came from PsychiatryUK, a private provider White accessed through Right To Choose, a mechanism which allows individuals to get assessments from elsewhere but via the NHS. I know it well because I got diagnosed with ADHD through PsychiatryUK thanks to Right To Choose a year before him.

The pathway wouldn’t have been my favourite, but it was the only one that felt viable; otherwise, I would have spent years languishing on NHS waiting lists. Even finding that out had taken some time: initially, when I asked my GP about the possibility of an ADHD assessment back in 2020, she told me, plainly, that she didn’t know what I should do. Again, it took some perseverance and a fair amount of pushing to get what I needed.

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Money alone will not fix the NHS

Jonty Bloom

Much of the coverage of White’s passing has focused on Right To Choose, and whether people ought to be diagnosed by this mishmash of public and private. Though my own diagnosis changed my life for the better and wouldn’t have been possible or as timely otherwise, I’m not here to defend PsychiatryUK.

Instead, the case I believe is worth making is that focusing on those narrow circumstances means letting the NHS as a whole off the hook. Sure, much can be improved when it comes to ADHD diagnoses, but I’ve had to push and push to get my way in many other areas of healthcare too. 

The bandage incident was the most memorable one, but it was only the tip of the iceberg. A toxic mix of underfunding, mismanagement and, quite frankly, a number of health professionals belittling patients has meant that only the luckiest and most headstrong have managed to consistently get the treatment they deserve. 

We often speak of the postcode lottery when it comes to treatment but, more often than we’d like to admit, the results will also depend on how vulnerable someone is, and how prepared they are to advocate for themselves. This shouldn’t be the case, and is arguably the lesson that should be learnt here.