Man 'in limbo' waiting for consultant appointment

A County Antrim man has said the wait to see a consultant is controlling his life and he is in limbo.

Terry Cannon, 62, from Kells outside Ballymena, is waiting for a diagnosis for a stomach problem after experiencing internal bleeding.

His GP is trying to treat and manage his symptoms without a diagnosis.

The chair of Northern Ireland General Practitioners Committee said the impact on patients being on waiting lists is "absolutely devastating" and their conditions deteriorate as they wait.

Mr Cannon said he postponed having cataract surgery as his symptoms are so unpredictable, he does not like leaving his house.

He was referred to a consultant by his GP in October.

"People don't understand that, when you're in a situation where you're actually losing blood, my first thought was cancer," he said.

While waiting for the appointment, Mr Cannon said the pain started and increased "to the stage where, on a scale from nought to 10, I was having spasms at level eight".

Mr Cannon went for a colonoscopy and, while he was told he did not have cancer, did not get a diagnosis.

He was referred to another consultant and another waiting list.

This time it was gastroenterology.

He said he "maybe naively" assumed he was in the process of being treated, and there would be follow-up appointments over the course of weeks.

"I'm now on a new list, and this list, although it's supposedly urgent, is longer than the first," he said.

Mr Cannon said he was "angry" and "disappointed" in the current situation.

"The way the system works is, you initially see your GP, who passes you to the consultant and you are now in the care of the consultant".

However, because he has not yet had a first appointment with the gastroenterology consultant and is not yet in their care he feels "in limbo".

Mr Cannon's GP has given him medication to "treat the symptoms, not the actual cause, because the cause can only be determined once I get the second procedure done".

He is on high-strength steroids but said he cannot stay on them long term.

"It makes me extremely angry," he said.

"I paid my taxes, I paid my national insurance, and I haven't been to the doctor prior to this for maybe 10 years.

"Now I do need that help, and all that money that I invested in the National Health Service, I'm not getting any benefit out of it."

He said he felt he and hundreds of other people were just "names on lists".

Dr Allen McCullough is Mr Cannon's GP in Antrim health centre and family practice.

Dr McCullough has been qualified for 35 years and said managing patients on waiting lists has become more of an issue in the past five to 10 years.

He said a good portion of his working day is taken up with patients who have long-term conditions that need investigation and treatment.

Dr McCullough said he accepted that all services were under pressure, and "what we're trying to do is meet an unmet need with a limited resource and we need to make best use of what is available for these patients".

"Our generic point is we want to get the right person seen by the right person at the right time," he told BBC News NI.

"There's nothing worse than knowing what you suspect a condition would be and there's treatment that can be available but will take one to two years to access when you know you can improve their quality of life now," he said.

Dr McCullough said a lack of treatment affects a patient's quality of life, especially if it is a life-long chronic condition.

"Your health will deteriorate over the next few years, so by the time you do get the treatment, the benefit of that treatment may have been lost significantly, because you never get those years back on your quality of life while you're waiting," he said.

Dr McCullough is in regular contact with patients like Terry to try to manage his symptoms in the meantime.

"He doesn't have an allocated consultant yet, but if he was lying on a corridor there would be a consultant looking after him, but we're trying to avoid that pressure on the acute services by holding the majority of the clinical need in the community where most people are," he said.

Dr Frances O'Hagan, chair of Northern Ireland General Practitioners Committee, said patients' conditions deteriorate while they wait.

"They're on the list for joint replacement, for example, and they're in pain. Their pain is getting worse. The mobility is decreasing. They're possibly no longer able to work and on increasing doses of painkillers".

"It's not just months, it's years. The patient journey is just so terrible."

Dr O'Hagan said the earlier someone is diagnosed and the quicker the intervention, the better the outcome, but thousands of people on waiting lists impact general practice as well as patients.

She said fixing waiting lists would fix many "problems in secondary care and in primary care.

Mr Cannon said he "would love to hear that phone ring and say, Terry, there is an appointment vacant can you attend? And I would be out the door.

"It would just change my life completely at the minute," he said.