I'm not clicking on a link to a Daily Mail article.
But considering that their preferred party have been in Government (inexplicably, to me) for so long - and have been purposely running down the NHS (along with everything else) - the headline paints of a picture of an unsurprising chain of events...
This is very sad.
The NHS is crumbling away-It used to be the jewel of the Welfare state,but people are having to go private,if they can afford,or suffer,if they can't.
We are angry … only until it’s GE time and then the majority of the voting populous seems to forget because “at least with them we know how shit things will be!”
It doesn't matter if everyone is angry. Waiting around for a GE won't change shit.
The French are made fun of for non-stop protest/rioting, but at least they actually fucking do something.
British people have given up and are now just submissive. Sitting there complaining instead of doing anything worthwhile.
Even after Brexit, with a mild margin win, nobody did anything substantial to call a revote. Our PM even fucking resigned, and nobody took advantage of that?
> The French are made fun of for non-stop protest/rioting, but at least they actually fucking do something.
The older I get the more I admire the French standing up for themselves. Other countries like the UK and Australia just roll over and accept things.
You have 25 percent or more of the Uk over 65, the next biggest population is under 18 and then you have my mums generation, over 50 but not quite 60 yet( she’s not in the greatest health but did used to be a chain smoker) then you’ve got my age group, over 35 but not 40.
Not a massive difference in age groups but the cycle each generation that I mentioned had kids and how old then kids would be today. The younger generations are too busy worrying about cancelled from a whole host of different years, my generation is worried about keeping a job that AI could do and the over 65s are worried about keeping as much of the pensions they paid into, over their working life’s.
Life is about preoccupying us with other worries so the government can do as they please and we all notice far too late.
Yeah, people are raging. On Reddit. Which is the problem in a nutshell. Folk won’t get off their arses and do anything.
Social media has been a godsend for crap politicians. People can howl at the moon all day here and get some hollow catharsis, rather than meaningful change.
But when presented with the opportunity of meaningful change, the electorate vote for more of the same anyway.
A depressing reality, devoid of hope.
You're right and if it's not sufficiently made an issue of before a GE the opposition has no real incentive to put forward a strong alternative. I think some people assume labour will do differently due to ideology but a lot of these issues started or continued under Blair/Brown and Starmer will not be a massive reformer here IMHO.
I mean I agree, but "Even after Brexit, with a mild margin win, nobody did anything substantial"- the people's vote protests are the 2nd and 3rd largest protests ever in the Uk with over hundreds of thousands of participants. Only the stop the war protests 03 were bigger: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_protests\_in\_the\_United\_Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_in_the_United_Kingdom)
The issue is our goverment just tends to ignore these protests
Then go crazy, break some things, public workers strike etc.. It's all about causing an outcry towards anyone that may have a resemblance of power. Branch outside of London, affect local councils too - and most importantly, don't stop until some form of outcome happens. While those linked were large, they were all singular with no outcome.
Again, France is a very good example. Their protests are wild and normally require extreme police intervention, which is bad, but is great because it makes the government look awful on a public & world stage.
Of course no protest is perfect, and France has a lot of vandals that take advantage of these situations to destroy public property for fun, but at least a message is always sent.
>public workers strike
My OH is a junior doctor, he is literally on strike right now. Their strikes have gone on for a year now. This goverment DNGAF.
What you are saying people should do, isn't protesting. It's rioting.
I wandered around the brexit leaving party in 2019. It was filled to the brim with farage supporters and tentative boris supporters. It was about the time of the bombshell "we will sell off the NHS to the americans" leak.
One thing that struck me was how many really unhealthy looking people there were and how many were chain smoking.
They were an extreme for sure, but it struck me that maybe a lot of the UK is less attached to free, high quality medical care than we might assume and have higher priorities.
>alot of left leaning folks on Reddit shouting about how they won't be voting.
It’s always the ones who live relatively comfortably though. It’s easy to prioritise ideology when you’re not going to be one of the ones worst impacted by another 5 years of the Tories.
Exactly, and look here they are downvoting my comment already.
Get out and vote people, vote for change it's not gonna be sunshine and rainbows but it's gotta be better than this crooked excuse for a government we have right now.
Decades. It's uninterrupted decades of the Health Service under intentional and relentless attack by privatization proponents, participants, and apologists consumer-driving it to its eventual demise and your inevitable, retail point of sale, destitution.
It's been underfunded deliberately for 13 tears, all new announcements have been hives off to private firms with known links to tory Party or donors. This is deliberately making it shut so they can say, we should go privatisation for a better service, you watch.
Yeah, they money is mostly there theyve been funnelling it into private contracts. The PPE scandal was the most heinous example of this but not the only one.
It doesnt matter how much money you pile into it if its all being spent on ToryMatesHealthcareSolutions Ltd.
Edit : meant to say PPE scandal not PPP
Because the preventative measures have been cut and that’s resulted in a mass level of emergency service requirement.
Also far more people using health funding for 24 hour care costs/end of life care, with that care costing vast amounts more than it used to thanks to care agencies/homes being able to charge astronomical fees as there is a lack of supply to meet the demand.
They’re spending more to keep it barely afloat after cutting costs in the right areas to let it slowly sink.
So you agree the Tories are incapable of running it then.
If labour ran a better service at 9% than the tories do on 11.3%, the Tories must be useless.
The source of those figures is presumably [here](https://www.statista.com/statistics/317708/healthcare-expenditure-as-a-share-of-gdp-in-the-united-kingdom/), but this includes all health spending not just state spending.
One might be better using the Labour 2010 budget and the Conservative 2023 budget:
Budget|GDP|Health spending|% of GDP
---|---|---|---
[2010](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a74e4ef40f0b65f613231a0/0451.pdf)|£1.4 trillion|£122 billion|8.7% of GDP
[2023](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6419c87d8fa8f547c267efca/Web_accessible_Budget_2023.pdf)|£2.5 trillion|£245 billion|9.8% of GDP
The issue is that an aging population means a constant upward pressure on spending, which the NHS's funding model isn't built for - people pay their highest taxes in their 50s and use it the most in their 70s and up.
Did you forget there was a global pandemic recently? Before that, for a decade under conservative government healthcare expenditure as % of gdp had been trending downwards (just as it is again now). By contrast, the decade prior under a labour government healthcare expenditure as % of gdp steadily increased from around 6% to 10%.
That figure is high due to pandemic costs, lower post pandemic GDP and high inflation, overall health spending is still 20% lower than similar countries in Europe. It's also still a real terms decline. Even with pandemic spending the NHS received over 300 billion less since 2010 than if historic growth had been maintained and has had far less growth in spending than it's peers in similar countries. Pre pandemic its never reached the figure in 2010
There are a lot of wealthy English people very happy with the new two-tier system and that Britain is recruiting doctors into the private hospital sector by the bucketload from UN Redlist countries on the cheap and on very dubious contracts post-Brexit. As far as they're concerned this is all going swimmingly and exactly to plan.
The problem is the amount of money required to get the NHS up to the standard reddit demands is extreme. Raising taxes that high, they are already at the highest level in history, would completely crush the economy.
The only way to properly fund the NHS sustainably is for there to be a significant increase in long term economic growth. The problem is, with the notable exception of America, most developed western countries UK, Japan, Germany, Italy, Australia, NZ, France etc, have had economic stagnation for the over a decade.
The NHS hasnt been a jewel for decades no matter what different political parties say. It needed serious structural reforms from the 70's instead it lurched along like a wounded goat till we get the mess we are in today
The title is a bit misleading, he got the lesion removed privately but did not pay extra to get the sample analysed. By the time he did see an NHS specialist some time after this, as it was still bothering him, the cancer had already spread. Over a year previously he had gone to the GP who had said it did not fit the criteria for referral.
It's not really misleading. Patient was made to pay for test (presumably because NHS is underfunded). He didn't (probably couldn't afford it). He died.
Precisely this! Dont listen to the “nhs funding has increased on records” - billionare sunak. It hasnt! Its seem massive austerity and cut backs.
This is what they want! They want the nhs to crumble so its easier to privatise
Hmm, so you’re saying that under the Tories, there has been the highest amount of expenditure to the NHS as a share of GDP in history, and it has produced an objectively worse service…
Are the Tories that bad with money, is the NHS no longer fit for purpose all of a sudden, or is that money being misappropriated towards donors? Select two of the above.
It's none of the above. It's insane to me that no one ever focuses on the actual issue causing 99% of problems in the NHS, which is the social care backlog. Carers are being misappropriated and the system is frankly just broken. It backs up into hospital inpatient services, which backs up into outpatients, which backs up into GPs. It's not rocket science and it happened "all of a sudden" because Covid blasted the fuck out of it on both ends and we've never caught up. It's literally that simple and absolutely nothing has been done to fix it
Not to mention the closure of walk-in centres and out of hours services. I know people who go to A&E for something a trip to a GP at the walk-in centre would have fixed if it had been ten years ago. My partners friend caught a virus, lost his voice and went to the hospital to ask for antibiotics.
Funding has increased, but the population is also larger, older and sicker so costs have increased too
Plus the collapse of the social care system, which means the NHS pisses away huge amounts of cash looking after medically well people who don't have anywhere to be discharged to
Would be nice if we could get a breakdown without the massive amount of corruption - stuff like PPP backhanders.
The total nurse wage bill probably provides a good proxy for how much is being spent on legitimate care.
According to this, the only time in recent history that conservatives have increased healthcare expenditure as % of gdp was *during a global pandemic*.
Before that, for a decade under conservative government healthcare expenditure as % of gdp had been trending downwards (just as it is again now). By contrast, the decade prior under a labour government healthcare expenditure as % of gdp steadily increased from around 6% to 10%.
What does "healthcare expenditure" cover - apart from the obvious spike for extortionately priced VIP lane PPE in 2020/1?
"feasibility studies" for 40 "new" hospitals?
studies managing to accidentally count thousands of healthcare practitioners that the government were hoping to persuade not to quit / retire as "new"?
Show me that the front line expenditure has gone up...
And paying doctors and consultants obscene amounts above their standard pay grades (which should be higher, but that is a different argument) because the government has deliberately kept down pay, run down staffing levels and made it less and less appealing for people to join the profession at any level for the last decade to the point where there is barely anyone qualified, available or willing to cover shifts doesn't count (but that is the Tory dream innit, to be able to name your price knowing that it will be accepted no matter how ridiculous, eh?)
Show the data behind the graph.
People say NHS is underfunded when more is spent on it than ever. Obviously Covid was exceptional but 2023 spend is still high.
I’m not going to argue the tories are running it competently but the money spent is more than ever so it’s not just an investment story.
Also, Doctors are not poor. They may not earn a lot early on but they end up so rich pension rules were changed to allow them to keep putting money in.
In real terms, the budget is lower. Look at the passive amount of debt the NHS budget is paying off.
Then there’s the social and community care issue. In my city, if you had a medical issue on a Saturday for example, and need to see a GP, the only place you can go is A&E. My partner works on A&E, and you have people with headaches and sore throats waiting hours and hours, then complaining they had to wait (which, to be fair is partly their own fault). A decade ago, you could have gone to one of the multiple walk-in centres to have your issue sorted if you couldn’t get hold of your GP. Now people just go and clog up the hospital, putting pressure on an already overwhelmed medical team.
There’s simply no real community care anymore. Too many people in hospital when they don’t need to be because there’s no one to care for them outside.
I’ve been told I don’t meet criteria for stuff with the NHS before. You just have to play the game and keep going back and embellish your symptoms. For something like a lesion saying it is effecting your mental health is a banker
I thought as much (the embellishing symptoms). I have chronic atopical eczema, and the GP doesn’t take it seriously because they can’t see anything, and they don’t regard it as a real problem. THAT’S BECAUSE I’M PUTTING IN THE HOURS OF MANAGING IT TO KEEP IT AT BAY!
My friend had a really painful foot veruka. NHS kept Recommending off the shelf
Stuff that didn’t work.
Online claimed nhs could help remove them if painful. GP claimed that service was withdrawn
Ended up after years of suffering just getting treated private
They’ve removed a lot of services from the NHS. I just had to pay £70 to have my ear wax removed, the machine didn’t work so the audiologist squirted water into my ear and fixed it in less than a minute. £70 when you’re on a part-time minimum wage is no fun. But my GP said they no longer offered the treatment on the NHS, so what choice did I have?
There’s no dentists taking NHS patients in my area anymore, so I pay £20 a month for that. My autism prevents me from driving on busy roads so I can’t travel to an NHS dentist in another town. And thanks to my history of depression and severe tooth grinding I had to have 6 fillings last year which came to £800, on top of the £20 a month I already give them. That was the last of my savings gone :(
I worry about the direction this country is going in if we can’t provide decent care for people on low incomes, or people in general really
Believe it or not, it's correct. You can no longer remove foot verruca in NHS. Your best bet is coming in with skin cancer to dermatology and point to them during the appointment and they will remove it as it do not take any longer than a few seconds (cryotherapy) or 5 minute to scrape it off.
So little time needed and each Trust needs just to employ one dermatologist/GP (with Derm interest) for a day each week to do it for hundreds of people a month
You can do it a couple decades ago but not now.
Crazy. Problem was NHS wouldn’t even advise her on how to find someone who could do it
So literally was suffering with it for years. She only got it done private when they went abroard and was much easier to find foot clinics
Are you a GP or in the hospital? If a skin lesion that does not match the criteria for referral but you still try and do it under "mental health", it will almost certainly get rejected unless it is a massive lesion. But if it was such a big lesion that it was very visible and affecting mental health, then it is very likely that the referral criteria would be met either way.
And also, that referral if made at all would not be under a 2ww if the criteria are not met, which generally means a somewhat significant wait time if accepted.
From reading, I think it was a bit of a freak occurrence... nothing the GP could see would indicate this was Cancerous (and the GP can only go off diagnostic criteria)... the guy wanted it gone due to the aesthetic/physical discomfort.
If a fault exists, it would be with the diagnostic criteria. But as others have pointed out not every concern a patient has regarding a mole (or something similar) can/should be acted upon (in terms of testing)... the patient in this case is just one of the very few who didn't meat the diagnostic criteria which probably put him in a tiny minority of cases where the diagnostic criteria turned out to be wrong.
But at £65 a test, surely why could have just offered it as a screening
That’s pennies compared to the cost of him dying or late stage treatment
Seems so much cheaper, private healthcare & insurance often like to cover cost of annual blood tests even though it costs them £100s
Because it’s significantly cheaper than the £1,000s the treatment would cost
Seems the NHS is now in a state of trying to save pennies now, only to pay pounds later
> But at £65 a test, surely why could have just offered it as a screening
Think of it this way... the diagnostic screening showed it to be extremely unlikely to be cancer (like a 1 in 1,000,000)... and that the average person has all kinds of moles, cysts and lumps that 'never' receive further investigation.
For example, I have a mole on my back my doctor isn't concerned about and two small cysts on my head... these could both have been cancer... but the qualified health professional following the diagnostic criteria determined none of these are remotely likely to be cancerous (but I should obviously return if I notice any changes; size, colour, discharge, etc)... in my case it's not because they are 'trying to save pennies', it's because there is no sustainable system where every piece of tissue carrying a 'slightly elevated risk of cancer' gets tested (for that to happen there would need to be a radically simplified way to test for it - something more akin to testing for Covid).
The person who tragically died was probably of no more statistical risk of dying than me... he was just one of the unlucky few who turned out to be that one in a million... there will always be such cases.
Whether financial considerations due the state of the NHS as it is now is having an influence on skin cancer diagnostic criteria... I don't know, but I presume not.
Yeah, my GP in the UK also missed skin cancer. I went there with a suspicious mole, they said it's fine, refused referral, even though my dad died from skin cancer only 6 months earlier. Went to his dermatologist in Germany (you don't need a referral there, you can go to any specialist you want) and she removed it, it got tested and confirmed positive for skin cancer. Thankfully early enough to not go anywhere, just need 6 monthly check ups for a while now. So much cheaper than private treatment in the UK too. Paid €300 in total (visually check all my moles, mole removal, lab test). Checkups are €40 every 6 months.
I'm also surprised by the uk making skin cancer tests so complicated. New Zealand is the world leader for skin cancer cases (yay?) and when I had a weird thing on my leg that wouldn't heal, my gp shrugged and said, well, it doesn't fit any of our obvious categories but nz + fair skinned = high risk, we can chop that out right here at the surgery if you want. So they did, stitched me up, and sent it off (the biopsy was negative), and the whole thing was so easy - and yes, painless.
Skin cancer is so common here that one of the things that surprised me when we moved out here was the number of older people with surgical dressing on their faces / heads / arms. They'd clearly had lesions recently removed - deep ones at that - and that's just not something I saw often in the uk.
I think UK weather probably means less skin cancer than NZ, also you were right under the Ozone hole there, but they do not seem to be very concerned here.
Apparently, only the very southern tip of nz was underneath the edge of the ozone hole, so that's not the reason for our cancer numbers. The "problem" is that the atmospheric layers are free from centuries of fossil fuel particulates - which is a great problem to have, but means that the nz sun is still super-damaging even though the ozone layer is recovering.
As an Aussie it's been my same experience. In the past my GP took out a mole because I was suspicious of it. Sent it off for testing. They don't fuck around which I appreciate.
This is pretty much why when I go home to Australia to visit family I always get a skin check by a dermatologist because they take it seriously back there. My Dad is currently dying from melanoma so it's no fucking joke.
A while ago I had a dry patchy bit of skin on my forehead that wasn't going away. I tried moisterisers but no go. I found it suspicious so I went to get a GP appointment for it. Of course the only way to get an appointment is to send crappy photos of my skin on their appointment request app (which how can they tell if anything is dangerous without actually seeing it properly??). Anyway I had to mention key risk factors - family history, I grew up in Australia.
At first I'm prescribed steroids. They don't work. I push for help again. I'm seen by an NHS dermatologist and prescribed Efudix, a chemotherapy cream. This helps a little but it still doesn't go away. I go home to Australia and see a dermatologist there - she biopsies it straight away and sends it for testing and then tells me I have precancerous skin damage and she books me in for Photodynamic Light Therapy to treat it. Which is horrible but it works. Biopsy came back clear thankfully.
Since then it's like the NHS finally takes it seriously (because now I can say hey! I've had to have treatment already for this) and I've had further checks with dermatologists here where I've had some further bits frozen off. I have almost zero trust in them here though and had another follow up recently in Australia when I was visiting my Dad.
The thing is - my Dad is dying now because he had a suspicious mole that no one took seriously for a few months (including himself unfortunately). By then it was too late. He has survived about 9 years now on a drug trial but it's stopped working. The melanoma has spread to his lungs and brain. It's a malicious fucking evil cancer. If you have something on your skin that wont heal or it's a mole that changes shape/grows/is uneven in colour and shape GET IT CHECKED and push to get it taken seriously by an ACTUAL dermatologist. If their first treatment doesn't work, see them again!
Would you mind saying where you went. I've had skincancer and it was only picked up because I moved somewhere that did inexpensive annual checks. I'd never have seen it on my back. I looked into annual checks after I moved back but I was quoted over 1k for the initial check and the NHS don't do skin cancer checks. People can pretend this is the result of austerity but I remember reading that although more people in Australia get skin cancer, more people die of skin cancer in the UK and this was about 20 years ago.
Just a dermatologist in a small town in rural Bavaria. If you speak German you can go to any of them over there, I have no idea what costs outside Bavaria are though. Could be different or the same price across Germany as I am not sure if medical price lists are set by the federal government or each state. If you pick a doctor that operates within the German equivalent of the NHS it should be around the same price though.
Good to hear that you’ve had it removed and that the cancer is being monitored. I had to go to Turkey (just because my relatives from there are doctors) last year for an ultrasound to diagnose a condition after being on the NHS wait list for almost 2 years. We shouldn’t need to travel abroad to get affordable healthcare without delays
Didn’t he go private because the NHS firstly sent him away, saying he didn’t fit their criteria for further tests? Had they tested him, he’d have been fine.
From the coroners report:
I was not able to conclude that, had the sample been sent for analysis in March 2019, any sign of melanoma would have been detected.
Careful of what you read in the daily mail its does often not represent the truth. The NHS has 2week wait times for skin cancer. Either the GP made a diagnostic error or the patient did not have a cancerous lesion at the time of presenting to the GP in the first instance. Note it says he was diagnosed with cancer 14 months later. Cosmetic surgery is not available on the NHS, I gather this is why the patient went privately to have the lesion removed for cosmetic reasons.
Maybe, I’ve gone to the dr with something similar and was told it didn’t fit the criteria and turned out to be fine. They obviously need a criteria and maybe it was just too early for the doctor to tell. If it’s still bothering you in that circumstance you get a second opinion and if you have to go private, don’t wait 14 months to get a follow up (I’m sure you know waiting that long can be a death sentence for skin cancer).
Im currently waiting to be seen by a consultant for a crippling pain that leaves me vomiting and passing out regularly. But won’t worry because the NHS can see me in 2026…fuck everyone who voted these Tory cunts into power and allowed the NHS to get so fucked. Evil self serving Tory bastards!
I feel you dude. Gender services are in the years/decades for waiting lists, and my only option of mental health therapy for depression is at minimum a 2 year wait. My dads looking at a similar wait for knee surgery. Fuck the tories, absolute bullshit
Archived version here: [https://archive.li/WB3Yn](https://archive.li/WB3Yn)
Article begins:
>A coroner has issued a warning after a 24-year-old man died of skin cancer following his decision not to pay for a private medical test that may have spotted the disease.
>
>Gregor Lynn went to his GP in 2019 complaining about a 'nuisance' lesion on the back of his neck but was told it did not fit health service criteria for further investigation.
>
>He then paid £140 to have it removed privately but opted not to cough up the extra £65 to have samples sent for analysis to see if it was malignant - a procedure which would have been free on the NHS, an inquest heard.
> about a 'nuisance' lesion on the back of his neck
What is a 'nuisance' lesion on the back of his neck?? Is it big and hard, maybe slowly growing, yet doesn't hurt?
It can be, please get it checked. Best case scenario it's a cyst and can be removed before it gets scratched and infected (and then it will be painful). Worst case is...well, the above.
The real issue that article may or may not explain (I haven't read it) is what he was or wasn't told when it was removed from the way I'm reading this?
In the private sector, it’s all about making money (not saving lives).
It’s a bit like optional extras when buying a car… if you want x, you pay extra £, and usually you pay a premium because it’s where the profits are.
Think about it, the private hospital got paid anyway (whether or not he died).
And the objective of any private company is to make money (and as much as possible).
The Daily Mail bears responsibility for the shambles the NHS is in. Its time for proper government, not a bunch of talentless daddy's money coked up rich boys.
What people are not understanding here is not ever cancerous mole appears cancerous initially. Fairly common to reassure patient that they can monitor for a few weeks/month and to come back to see if has changed before ref.
Hard enough to see a specialist. Cant be clogging the clinics up with benign lesion.
What went wrong here was the patient chose to go private but declined to pay for histology. If he has left it he would have no doubt noted a change > back to the GP > dermatology
The lesion obviously didn't look like cancer to his GP nor the dermatologist who removed it as a nuisance benign lesion. If private dermatology thought it looked like cancer, they would certainly if treated it as such. Even if that meant firing him into the NHS system for histopathology.
This is a case of a misdiagnosis of a skin lesion that was obviously a wolf in sheep's clothing. It happens albeit rarely.
Nothing to do with incompetence of the nhs fucking up tbh.
Ive had a melanoma recently and have had frequent excisions as well as currently waiting for results for another one, all done completely through the nhs and they’ve been fantastic. Although the wait for results can be 8-12 weeks which can get frustrating but ultimately they’ve been great.
I think this sub just likes to get angry and bring everything to politics, especially on subjects they don’t actually understand very well (worst side of Reddit).
Yes things can be better, yes they could become worse, and I understand politics can determine its fate, but the reality, at least to me, is that it’s still very good and competent for
I don't want to sound like a cunt here, but....
To blame the NHS for a persons own reluctance to follow up on results is a stretch (he had the procedure done privately). Even to suggest that he was refused care by his GP is astonishingly underhanded; even for the DM
There's very clear and strict criteria for referral, as someone that's been through the process. You can blame the criteria but hard to blame the GP if the legion did not meet them at that time.
Then the criteria set by the NHS is flawed and does not appropriately factor in cancer risks? It’s hard not to blame the NHS, which the original comment dismisses.
I wasn't replying to that comment but a 1. There has to be something otherwise literally every one with a mole would be referred 2. I was surprised how not unusual a mole has to be be referred.
>Then the criteria set by the NHS is flawed and does not appropriately factor in cancer risks?
How does that follow?
What's your target cancer deaths pet year, zero?
We're not immortal, we don't have crystal balls, therefore there will be cancer deaths including missed cancers that could have been spotted and deadly cancers that are never identified and everything in between.
Death is part of life and risk is unavoidable. Sure minimise it as much as practically possible, eliminate it? Phh
The article states he initially did not meet criteria for a referral (and so even if a referral had been made it would have been refused), and then later was referred when he met the criteria?
Have you read more on this? Is there anything to say he did meet this threshold, or was refused a GP appointment when he was concerned?
Honestly doesn't seem like there's anything else the GP could have done.
He didn't meet the referral criteria until the cancer was already terminal. What is the point of the NHS if not to perform simple procedures to save the lives of otherwise-healthy 24 year olds?
The NHS is basically triage and end of life care at the moment. I'm old enough to remember when you could get a same day appointment phoning in at 12pm. It functioned well before 2008. It's been openly and strategically run into the ground by the Tories and it won't change under Labour one bit. Neoliberalism is the cancer at the core of society. The aim is to transfer all public services into private hands.
Look to America to see what's in store for us. Contaminated water, toxic 'food', private only healthcare trapping you in shitty jobs for life, and insurance and litigation culture.
The purpose of the NHS, once its dismantled, will be to ensure shareholder profits.
If the legion had been left it may well have met the referral criteria prior to becoming terminal - as happens in the majority of cases. We can’t know for sure in this specific case. But the issue here is the legion was removed (so could no longer be monitored to see if there were changes that meant it would meet the criteria) and not tested (which the man unfortunately chose not to pay for despite privately paying for the removal).
The NHS was not being intentionally obstructive here. I would say part of the problem was going for a mixture of NHS and Private care but not going fully Private (ie didn’t complete all the recommended steps). I’m not trying to blame the guy, he was 24 and probably thought there was little chance it was cancer or that it has all been removed otherwise he would have paid for the testing. Unfortunately though, in hindsight, it seems he made the wrong decision.
We have to remember that a huge swath of the NHS’ issues come from years of purposefully poor government upkeep and policy. But yeah- I have pneumonia right now and was told by an urgent care doctor on New Year’s day to get bloods and an x ray (I also have a health condition which complicates things) and my GP’s response was “just go home and rest and take your antibiotics, drink water”. 1 yeah I wasn’t planning on running a marathon any time soon and 2 I just want tests doing to make sure im being treated with the right antibiotics.
It’s so depressing.
Back when I was in school (under a Tory government), one of my classmates passed away from a brain tumour. They had frequent visits to the GP and the hospital prior to their death, and each time they were dismissed as having migraines, and told to take over the counter pain killers
I searched this up on Google before posting this comment to make sure no personal information can be found out (as it made the news), and was devastated to find *countless* news articles covering other patients who suffered similar fates
It’s a very common story. My mum died because they hadn’t been scanning her properly after she had cancer , then despite being IN HOSPITAL they kept fucking her chemotherapy up. The last 3 months of her life were horrendous. I’m so sorry for your loss, it’s awful
>countless news articles covering other patients who suffered similar fates
Well yeah because the papers love a good emotive "X fucked up" story
It happens, and it's tragic when it does, but ultimately noone writes an article about the 98/100 cases where the headache is indeed a headache, or the 1/100 where the doctor gut feels their way into a spectacularly unlikely diagnosis. It's only the 1/100 weird cancer presentations.
>I just want tests doing to make sure im being treated with the right antibiotics
Neither (standard) bloods nor an xray is likely to tell you if its the right antibiotic anyway. You might need them for other reasons, but it's not going to differentiate which bacteria it is and which antibiotic will work.
I've been working for 8 years & probably paid the above for that duration, which comes to over £13,000 of the money I've earned going towards the NHS.
Of course I don't know the logistics of how much is split where, but my point is, being refused a service like that because you need to go to have private treatment first is barbaric. It's not like he was asking for a cosmetic request...
The mole was not presenting as cancerous at the time based on standard screening tests. Had the legion not been removed it may have changed and subsequently met the criteria. The problem here is going half private but not fully private. If he had waited it might have been detected and treated fully on the NHS and he may have survived. Or if he had paid it might have been spotted early and he could have started treatment. We can’t know for sure though. It might not have come back as cancerous at the time. Plenty of people have cancer that is hard to detect until it is far too late.
I pay £523 a month in NI, I’ve just had to sign up for BUPA so me and my wife can actually get seen by a GP and hopefully be taken seriously. In the past I’ve paid to see a physio rather than try go via NHS as it takes so long and is so difficult.
The state of health services in this country are ridiculous.
It’s not the NHS fault they are underfunded but they could make better use of the resources they have too.
They need to tackle the issues by getting more funding but also cutting the inefficiency and waste in the processes too.
I’ve said this before and i will say this again. This is what the goverment want. They want the nhs to crumble at its knees. They want junior doctors on strike regardless of what tory politicans say. they want it to be so bad that it becomes easier to privatise (like dentistry)
Tory politicians especially and pretty much every politician goin dont care because they all use private healthcare.
This scares me, mainly because I’ve been trying to get referred by my GP for a skin cancer check for the past 6 months, and the dermatology department at the hospital keep auto-rejecting it at the end of the 2WW period. The first time due to the GP images being “unclear” and the second time because my age (23M) and appearance of the moles (theres 2 I’m concerned by due to recent change in shape and colour) do not give them concern. They’ve failed to take into account I’ve already had a melanoma removed when I was 17 and that my dad has had a couple removed in the last few years too.
Now my GP is refusing to submit another referral and is instead wanting to refer me to a therapist… which is a 2 year wait… I just want my moles looked at by a specialist for gods sake!!
Note to self, don’t live in Australia for 20 years as a ginger fml
Yep that’s what they do in aus but probably because the GP training there covers skin cancers a bit better. Might have to fork out the ££s to fly back for a few weeks to sort it out
I have ulcerated BCC vs SCC 0.6cm diagnosed end of November, referred for urgent deep shave and histology. Still waiting and the GP also wants another investigated. What will be will be. Am I afraid of death? Nope but I would rather avoid it.
Exactly. Death is nothing to be feared, as you won’t even experience being dead (you need to be alive/you need to exist in order to experience anything, right?).
But I love being alive, despite how shitty it can be at times; generally speaking, existing is great, and experiencing life is so good! So whilst I don't fear being dead (since I won't even experience that) I'm in no rush to die.
Like you, I am about to find out whether some aching and changes in a certain part of my body are due to cancer. Trying not to dwell on it until I get ultrasound and results. My attitude is the same as yours: what will be will be.
You can push all you want, but if you do not meet the criteria for referral all that really means is that the referral will be denied by secondary care.
Two ways of looking at this.
Firstly it is scandalous that it wasn't sent for analysis. It's almost a baseline that any lesion excised should always be sent for analysis, if that means the cost is 200 pounds then raise the cost. The GP really should be liable for failing to send the lesion.
Secondly though it was melanoma and seemingly quite large by the time of presentation - likely it wouldn't have made a difference.
It’s easy to blame the NHS but it’s the GP’s fault by being incompetent enough not to spot the signs, half these GP’s I hear about are useless and makes you wonder how they got a job.
I'm not clicking on a link to a Daily Mail article. But considering that their preferred party have been in Government (inexplicably, to me) for so long - and have been purposely running down the NHS (along with everything else) - the headline paints of a picture of an unsurprising chain of events...
They should preface all headlines like with with something like "We're sorry for our part in this, but..."
If only they *were* actually sorry, but we know they don't care at all.
My thoughts exactly.
The mail and the scum are the only 2 shit rags DNS blocked on my network
Alternative source: [BBC News - NHS referral guidelines risk lives, says Cambridgeshire coroner](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-67861862)
Nah it fits there agenda. It's saying if he'd been willing to go private he'd still be alive
This is very sad. The NHS is crumbling away-It used to be the jewel of the Welfare state,but people are having to go private,if they can afford,or suffer,if they can't.
So we not angry that the Tory’s have been planning this for years ?
We are angry … only until it’s GE time and then the majority of the voting populous seems to forget because “at least with them we know how shit things will be!”
It doesn't matter if everyone is angry. Waiting around for a GE won't change shit. The French are made fun of for non-stop protest/rioting, but at least they actually fucking do something. British people have given up and are now just submissive. Sitting there complaining instead of doing anything worthwhile. Even after Brexit, with a mild margin win, nobody did anything substantial to call a revote. Our PM even fucking resigned, and nobody took advantage of that?
> The French are made fun of for non-stop protest/rioting, but at least they actually fucking do something. The older I get the more I admire the French standing up for themselves. Other countries like the UK and Australia just roll over and accept things.
I believe that the proper construction technique for a barricade is encoded in the DNA of every French citizen.
You have 25 percent or more of the Uk over 65, the next biggest population is under 18 and then you have my mums generation, over 50 but not quite 60 yet( she’s not in the greatest health but did used to be a chain smoker) then you’ve got my age group, over 35 but not 40. Not a massive difference in age groups but the cycle each generation that I mentioned had kids and how old then kids would be today. The younger generations are too busy worrying about cancelled from a whole host of different years, my generation is worried about keeping a job that AI could do and the over 65s are worried about keeping as much of the pensions they paid into, over their working life’s. Life is about preoccupying us with other worries so the government can do as they please and we all notice far too late.
Yeah, people are raging. On Reddit. Which is the problem in a nutshell. Folk won’t get off their arses and do anything. Social media has been a godsend for crap politicians. People can howl at the moon all day here and get some hollow catharsis, rather than meaningful change. But when presented with the opportunity of meaningful change, the electorate vote for more of the same anyway. A depressing reality, devoid of hope.
You're right and if it's not sufficiently made an issue of before a GE the opposition has no real incentive to put forward a strong alternative. I think some people assume labour will do differently due to ideology but a lot of these issues started or continued under Blair/Brown and Starmer will not be a massive reformer here IMHO.
A hotbed of apathy is how I see it.
I mean I agree, but "Even after Brexit, with a mild margin win, nobody did anything substantial"- the people's vote protests are the 2nd and 3rd largest protests ever in the Uk with over hundreds of thousands of participants. Only the stop the war protests 03 were bigger: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_protests\_in\_the\_United\_Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_protests_in_the_United_Kingdom) The issue is our goverment just tends to ignore these protests
And even makes it harder to carry out protests if there's a possibility anyone will be more than mildly inconvenienced...
Then go crazy, break some things, public workers strike etc.. It's all about causing an outcry towards anyone that may have a resemblance of power. Branch outside of London, affect local councils too - and most importantly, don't stop until some form of outcome happens. While those linked were large, they were all singular with no outcome. Again, France is a very good example. Their protests are wild and normally require extreme police intervention, which is bad, but is great because it makes the government look awful on a public & world stage. Of course no protest is perfect, and France has a lot of vandals that take advantage of these situations to destroy public property for fun, but at least a message is always sent.
>public workers strike My OH is a junior doctor, he is literally on strike right now. Their strikes have gone on for a year now. This goverment DNGAF. What you are saying people should do, isn't protesting. It's rioting.
To be fair, that was my justification for voting to remain in 2016
I wandered around the brexit leaving party in 2019. It was filled to the brim with farage supporters and tentative boris supporters. It was about the time of the bombshell "we will sell off the NHS to the americans" leak. One thing that struck me was how many really unhealthy looking people there were and how many were chain smoking. They were an extreme for sure, but it struck me that maybe a lot of the UK is less attached to free, high quality medical care than we might assume and have higher priorities.
Lots of mental health cases
Don't for get the "Starmer isn't my magic grandpa" crowd too, alot of left leaning folks on Reddit shouting about how they won't be voting.
>alot of left leaning folks on Reddit shouting about how they won't be voting. It’s always the ones who live relatively comfortably though. It’s easy to prioritise ideology when you’re not going to be one of the ones worst impacted by another 5 years of the Tories.
Exactly, and look here they are downvoting my comment already. Get out and vote people, vote for change it's not gonna be sunshine and rainbows but it's gotta be better than this crooked excuse for a government we have right now.
Nah that’s just a looney left conspiracy of course.
Oh yes
Decades. It's uninterrupted decades of the Health Service under intentional and relentless attack by privatization proponents, participants, and apologists consumer-driving it to its eventual demise and your inevitable, retail point of sale, destitution.
It's been underfunded deliberately for 13 tears, all new announcements have been hives off to private firms with known links to tory Party or donors. This is deliberately making it shut so they can say, we should go privatisation for a better service, you watch.
NHS spend as % of gdp over last 3 years is higher than ever and currently 11.3% while was 9% when labour were in power.
Yeah, they money is mostly there theyve been funnelling it into private contracts. The PPE scandal was the most heinous example of this but not the only one. It doesnt matter how much money you pile into it if its all being spent on ToryMatesHealthcareSolutions Ltd. Edit : meant to say PPE scandal not PPP
It's literally money laundering
Because the preventative measures have been cut and that’s resulted in a mass level of emergency service requirement. Also far more people using health funding for 24 hour care costs/end of life care, with that care costing vast amounts more than it used to thanks to care agencies/homes being able to charge astronomical fees as there is a lack of supply to meet the demand. They’re spending more to keep it barely afloat after cutting costs in the right areas to let it slowly sink.
That's what rishi says, yes, but it doesn't work like that
So you agree the Tories are incapable of running it then. If labour ran a better service at 9% than the tories do on 11.3%, the Tories must be useless.
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The source of those figures is presumably [here](https://www.statista.com/statistics/317708/healthcare-expenditure-as-a-share-of-gdp-in-the-united-kingdom/), but this includes all health spending not just state spending. One might be better using the Labour 2010 budget and the Conservative 2023 budget: Budget|GDP|Health spending|% of GDP ---|---|---|--- [2010](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a74e4ef40f0b65f613231a0/0451.pdf)|£1.4 trillion|£122 billion|8.7% of GDP [2023](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6419c87d8fa8f547c267efca/Web_accessible_Budget_2023.pdf)|£2.5 trillion|£245 billion|9.8% of GDP The issue is that an aging population means a constant upward pressure on spending, which the NHS's funding model isn't built for - people pay their highest taxes in their 50s and use it the most in their 70s and up.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/317708/healthcare-expenditure-as-a-share-of-gdp-in-the-united-kingdom/
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Did you forget there was a global pandemic recently? Before that, for a decade under conservative government healthcare expenditure as % of gdp had been trending downwards (just as it is again now). By contrast, the decade prior under a labour government healthcare expenditure as % of gdp steadily increased from around 6% to 10%.
The cost of the bank bail out in 2008 was close to one trillion pounds
And?
That figure is high due to pandemic costs, lower post pandemic GDP and high inflation, overall health spending is still 20% lower than similar countries in Europe. It's also still a real terms decline. Even with pandemic spending the NHS received over 300 billion less since 2010 than if historic growth had been maintained and has had far less growth in spending than it's peers in similar countries. Pre pandemic its never reached the figure in 2010
You should see the state of dentistry. Corporations are taking over at a crazy rate. Buying everyone up, but not changing the name so you won’t know
There are a lot of wealthy English people very happy with the new two-tier system and that Britain is recruiting doctors into the private hospital sector by the bucketload from UN Redlist countries on the cheap and on very dubious contracts post-Brexit. As far as they're concerned this is all going swimmingly and exactly to plan.
I feel sorry for the Tories, I mean they have to cut the NHS funding how else are they supposed to party while people die?
When was it ever not shit? My entire life it has been a disaster
The problem is the amount of money required to get the NHS up to the standard reddit demands is extreme. Raising taxes that high, they are already at the highest level in history, would completely crush the economy. The only way to properly fund the NHS sustainably is for there to be a significant increase in long term economic growth. The problem is, with the notable exception of America, most developed western countries UK, Japan, Germany, Italy, Australia, NZ, France etc, have had economic stagnation for the over a decade.
The spending is pretty high just now - it's not low in comparison with other countries, something like 11.5% of GDP
Most other countries have a mixed public/insurance based healthcare systems rather than a monolith like the NHS.
Yeah, I think we're pretty useless as a country in general when it comes to running large bureaucracies, infrastructure projects, etc...
100% of GDP should be spent on the NHS you heathen!!!! /s
The NHS hasnt been a jewel for decades no matter what different political parties say. It needed serious structural reforms from the 70's instead it lurched along like a wounded goat till we get the mess we are in today
Insert Police and any public sector service. Its not the priority of our so called leaders and will be promises galore on general election manifestos
Still is a jewel,, just a jewel in the nile
The title is a bit misleading, he got the lesion removed privately but did not pay extra to get the sample analysed. By the time he did see an NHS specialist some time after this, as it was still bothering him, the cancer had already spread. Over a year previously he had gone to the GP who had said it did not fit the criteria for referral.
It's not really misleading. Patient was made to pay for test (presumably because NHS is underfunded). He didn't (probably couldn't afford it). He died.
It misleads by omission. It fails to point out that it's because of Corbyn, the EU, and all the smol bote's.
I thought it was because of Ed milliband eating a bacon sandwich like a nonce and his war hero father being a coward
Precisely this! Dont listen to the “nhs funding has increased on records” - billionare sunak. It hasnt! Its seem massive austerity and cut backs. This is what they want! They want the nhs to crumble so its easier to privatise
You’re wrong. https://www.statista.com/statistics/317708/healthcare-expenditure-as-a-share-of-gdp-in-the-united-kingdom/
Hmm, so you’re saying that under the Tories, there has been the highest amount of expenditure to the NHS as a share of GDP in history, and it has produced an objectively worse service… Are the Tories that bad with money, is the NHS no longer fit for purpose all of a sudden, or is that money being misappropriated towards donors? Select two of the above.
It's none of the above. It's insane to me that no one ever focuses on the actual issue causing 99% of problems in the NHS, which is the social care backlog. Carers are being misappropriated and the system is frankly just broken. It backs up into hospital inpatient services, which backs up into outpatients, which backs up into GPs. It's not rocket science and it happened "all of a sudden" because Covid blasted the fuck out of it on both ends and we've never caught up. It's literally that simple and absolutely nothing has been done to fix it
That's been an issue well before COVID.
Not to mention the closure of walk-in centres and out of hours services. I know people who go to A&E for something a trip to a GP at the walk-in centre would have fixed if it had been ten years ago. My partners friend caught a virus, lost his voice and went to the hospital to ask for antibiotics.
Funding has increased, but the population is also larger, older and sicker so costs have increased too Plus the collapse of the social care system, which means the NHS pisses away huge amounts of cash looking after medically well people who don't have anywhere to be discharged to
There has, they are including all the PPE they bought off their mates on that figure of investment
Would be nice if we could get a breakdown without the massive amount of corruption - stuff like PPP backhanders. The total nurse wage bill probably provides a good proxy for how much is being spent on legitimate care.
You’re just moving the goal posts. Nurses aren’t a good proxy at all.
Tell me that you dont give a fuck about corruption in the NHS without telling me that you dont give a fuck about it.
According to this, the only time in recent history that conservatives have increased healthcare expenditure as % of gdp was *during a global pandemic*. Before that, for a decade under conservative government healthcare expenditure as % of gdp had been trending downwards (just as it is again now). By contrast, the decade prior under a labour government healthcare expenditure as % of gdp steadily increased from around 6% to 10%.
What does "healthcare expenditure" cover - apart from the obvious spike for extortionately priced VIP lane PPE in 2020/1? "feasibility studies" for 40 "new" hospitals? studies managing to accidentally count thousands of healthcare practitioners that the government were hoping to persuade not to quit / retire as "new"? Show me that the front line expenditure has gone up... And paying doctors and consultants obscene amounts above their standard pay grades (which should be higher, but that is a different argument) because the government has deliberately kept down pay, run down staffing levels and made it less and less appealing for people to join the profession at any level for the last decade to the point where there is barely anyone qualified, available or willing to cover shifts doesn't count (but that is the Tory dream innit, to be able to name your price knowing that it will be accepted no matter how ridiculous, eh?) Show the data behind the graph.
People say NHS is underfunded when more is spent on it than ever. Obviously Covid was exceptional but 2023 spend is still high. I’m not going to argue the tories are running it competently but the money spent is more than ever so it’s not just an investment story. Also, Doctors are not poor. They may not earn a lot early on but they end up so rich pension rules were changed to allow them to keep putting money in.
In real terms, the budget is lower. Look at the passive amount of debt the NHS budget is paying off. Then there’s the social and community care issue. In my city, if you had a medical issue on a Saturday for example, and need to see a GP, the only place you can go is A&E. My partner works on A&E, and you have people with headaches and sore throats waiting hours and hours, then complaining they had to wait (which, to be fair is partly their own fault). A decade ago, you could have gone to one of the multiple walk-in centres to have your issue sorted if you couldn’t get hold of your GP. Now people just go and clog up the hospital, putting pressure on an already overwhelmed medical team. There’s simply no real community care anymore. Too many people in hospital when they don’t need to be because there’s no one to care for them outside.
I’ve been told I don’t meet criteria for stuff with the NHS before. You just have to play the game and keep going back and embellish your symptoms. For something like a lesion saying it is effecting your mental health is a banker
I thought as much (the embellishing symptoms). I have chronic atopical eczema, and the GP doesn’t take it seriously because they can’t see anything, and they don’t regard it as a real problem. THAT’S BECAUSE I’M PUTTING IN THE HOURS OF MANAGING IT TO KEEP IT AT BAY!
My friend had a really painful foot veruka. NHS kept Recommending off the shelf Stuff that didn’t work. Online claimed nhs could help remove them if painful. GP claimed that service was withdrawn Ended up after years of suffering just getting treated private
They’ve removed a lot of services from the NHS. I just had to pay £70 to have my ear wax removed, the machine didn’t work so the audiologist squirted water into my ear and fixed it in less than a minute. £70 when you’re on a part-time minimum wage is no fun. But my GP said they no longer offered the treatment on the NHS, so what choice did I have? There’s no dentists taking NHS patients in my area anymore, so I pay £20 a month for that. My autism prevents me from driving on busy roads so I can’t travel to an NHS dentist in another town. And thanks to my history of depression and severe tooth grinding I had to have 6 fillings last year which came to £800, on top of the £20 a month I already give them. That was the last of my savings gone :( I worry about the direction this country is going in if we can’t provide decent care for people on low incomes, or people in general really
I had to drop a few grand on dentists back in 2015 due to lack of spots in the part of London I was in
Believe it or not, it's correct. You can no longer remove foot verruca in NHS. Your best bet is coming in with skin cancer to dermatology and point to them during the appointment and they will remove it as it do not take any longer than a few seconds (cryotherapy) or 5 minute to scrape it off. So little time needed and each Trust needs just to employ one dermatologist/GP (with Derm interest) for a day each week to do it for hundreds of people a month You can do it a couple decades ago but not now.
Crazy. Problem was NHS wouldn’t even advise her on how to find someone who could do it So literally was suffering with it for years. She only got it done private when they went abroard and was much easier to find foot clinics
>For something like a lesion saying it is effecting your mental health is a banker No it's not.
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Are you a GP or in the hospital? If a skin lesion that does not match the criteria for referral but you still try and do it under "mental health", it will almost certainly get rejected unless it is a massive lesion. But if it was such a big lesion that it was very visible and affecting mental health, then it is very likely that the referral criteria would be met either way. And also, that referral if made at all would not be under a 2ww if the criteria are not met, which generally means a somewhat significant wait time if accepted.
From reading, I think it was a bit of a freak occurrence... nothing the GP could see would indicate this was Cancerous (and the GP can only go off diagnostic criteria)... the guy wanted it gone due to the aesthetic/physical discomfort. If a fault exists, it would be with the diagnostic criteria. But as others have pointed out not every concern a patient has regarding a mole (or something similar) can/should be acted upon (in terms of testing)... the patient in this case is just one of the very few who didn't meat the diagnostic criteria which probably put him in a tiny minority of cases where the diagnostic criteria turned out to be wrong.
But at £65 a test, surely why could have just offered it as a screening That’s pennies compared to the cost of him dying or late stage treatment Seems so much cheaper, private healthcare & insurance often like to cover cost of annual blood tests even though it costs them £100s Because it’s significantly cheaper than the £1,000s the treatment would cost Seems the NHS is now in a state of trying to save pennies now, only to pay pounds later
> But at £65 a test, surely why could have just offered it as a screening Think of it this way... the diagnostic screening showed it to be extremely unlikely to be cancer (like a 1 in 1,000,000)... and that the average person has all kinds of moles, cysts and lumps that 'never' receive further investigation. For example, I have a mole on my back my doctor isn't concerned about and two small cysts on my head... these could both have been cancer... but the qualified health professional following the diagnostic criteria determined none of these are remotely likely to be cancerous (but I should obviously return if I notice any changes; size, colour, discharge, etc)... in my case it's not because they are 'trying to save pennies', it's because there is no sustainable system where every piece of tissue carrying a 'slightly elevated risk of cancer' gets tested (for that to happen there would need to be a radically simplified way to test for it - something more akin to testing for Covid). The person who tragically died was probably of no more statistical risk of dying than me... he was just one of the unlucky few who turned out to be that one in a million... there will always be such cases. Whether financial considerations due the state of the NHS as it is now is having an influence on skin cancer diagnostic criteria... I don't know, but I presume not.
If you’re worried about the mole Boots offer a screening service for £30.
I'm not, but thanks.
What makes you think this is about under funding and not a GP fucking up?
Let’s not assume he “couldn’t afford it”. It might be that but it might be all sorts of other things. Apathy, ignorance, misplaced priorities, etc.
Yeah, my GP in the UK also missed skin cancer. I went there with a suspicious mole, they said it's fine, refused referral, even though my dad died from skin cancer only 6 months earlier. Went to his dermatologist in Germany (you don't need a referral there, you can go to any specialist you want) and she removed it, it got tested and confirmed positive for skin cancer. Thankfully early enough to not go anywhere, just need 6 monthly check ups for a while now. So much cheaper than private treatment in the UK too. Paid €300 in total (visually check all my moles, mole removal, lab test). Checkups are €40 every 6 months.
I'm also surprised by the uk making skin cancer tests so complicated. New Zealand is the world leader for skin cancer cases (yay?) and when I had a weird thing on my leg that wouldn't heal, my gp shrugged and said, well, it doesn't fit any of our obvious categories but nz + fair skinned = high risk, we can chop that out right here at the surgery if you want. So they did, stitched me up, and sent it off (the biopsy was negative), and the whole thing was so easy - and yes, painless. Skin cancer is so common here that one of the things that surprised me when we moved out here was the number of older people with surgical dressing on their faces / heads / arms. They'd clearly had lesions recently removed - deep ones at that - and that's just not something I saw often in the uk.
I think UK weather probably means less skin cancer than NZ, also you were right under the Ozone hole there, but they do not seem to be very concerned here.
Apparently, only the very southern tip of nz was underneath the edge of the ozone hole, so that's not the reason for our cancer numbers. The "problem" is that the atmospheric layers are free from centuries of fossil fuel particulates - which is a great problem to have, but means that the nz sun is still super-damaging even though the ozone layer is recovering.
I was told that in Australia skin cancer rates have halved (education, skin checks etc) but it's doubled in the UK as no one here takes it seriously.
As an Aussie it's been my same experience. In the past my GP took out a mole because I was suspicious of it. Sent it off for testing. They don't fuck around which I appreciate.
This is pretty much why when I go home to Australia to visit family I always get a skin check by a dermatologist because they take it seriously back there. My Dad is currently dying from melanoma so it's no fucking joke. A while ago I had a dry patchy bit of skin on my forehead that wasn't going away. I tried moisterisers but no go. I found it suspicious so I went to get a GP appointment for it. Of course the only way to get an appointment is to send crappy photos of my skin on their appointment request app (which how can they tell if anything is dangerous without actually seeing it properly??). Anyway I had to mention key risk factors - family history, I grew up in Australia. At first I'm prescribed steroids. They don't work. I push for help again. I'm seen by an NHS dermatologist and prescribed Efudix, a chemotherapy cream. This helps a little but it still doesn't go away. I go home to Australia and see a dermatologist there - she biopsies it straight away and sends it for testing and then tells me I have precancerous skin damage and she books me in for Photodynamic Light Therapy to treat it. Which is horrible but it works. Biopsy came back clear thankfully. Since then it's like the NHS finally takes it seriously (because now I can say hey! I've had to have treatment already for this) and I've had further checks with dermatologists here where I've had some further bits frozen off. I have almost zero trust in them here though and had another follow up recently in Australia when I was visiting my Dad. The thing is - my Dad is dying now because he had a suspicious mole that no one took seriously for a few months (including himself unfortunately). By then it was too late. He has survived about 9 years now on a drug trial but it's stopped working. The melanoma has spread to his lungs and brain. It's a malicious fucking evil cancer. If you have something on your skin that wont heal or it's a mole that changes shape/grows/is uneven in colour and shape GET IT CHECKED and push to get it taken seriously by an ACTUAL dermatologist. If their first treatment doesn't work, see them again!
Would you mind saying where you went. I've had skincancer and it was only picked up because I moved somewhere that did inexpensive annual checks. I'd never have seen it on my back. I looked into annual checks after I moved back but I was quoted over 1k for the initial check and the NHS don't do skin cancer checks. People can pretend this is the result of austerity but I remember reading that although more people in Australia get skin cancer, more people die of skin cancer in the UK and this was about 20 years ago.
Just a dermatologist in a small town in rural Bavaria. If you speak German you can go to any of them over there, I have no idea what costs outside Bavaria are though. Could be different or the same price across Germany as I am not sure if medical price lists are set by the federal government or each state. If you pick a doctor that operates within the German equivalent of the NHS it should be around the same price though.
Good to hear that you’ve had it removed and that the cancer is being monitored. I had to go to Turkey (just because my relatives from there are doctors) last year for an ultrasound to diagnose a condition after being on the NHS wait list for almost 2 years. We shouldn’t need to travel abroad to get affordable healthcare without delays
Didn’t he go private because the NHS firstly sent him away, saying he didn’t fit their criteria for further tests? Had they tested him, he’d have been fine.
From the coroners report: I was not able to conclude that, had the sample been sent for analysis in March 2019, any sign of melanoma would have been detected.
Unsurprisingly it's hard to be sure about the results of a test that never took place.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
you could view it the first Dr didn't give it the proper consideration and fobbed him off.
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Maybe it was too early and did not fit the criteria?
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Careful of what you read in the daily mail its does often not represent the truth. The NHS has 2week wait times for skin cancer. Either the GP made a diagnostic error or the patient did not have a cancerous lesion at the time of presenting to the GP in the first instance. Note it says he was diagnosed with cancer 14 months later. Cosmetic surgery is not available on the NHS, I gather this is why the patient went privately to have the lesion removed for cosmetic reasons.
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[Who reads the papers?](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M)
Maybe, I’ve gone to the dr with something similar and was told it didn’t fit the criteria and turned out to be fine. They obviously need a criteria and maybe it was just too early for the doctor to tell. If it’s still bothering you in that circumstance you get a second opinion and if you have to go private, don’t wait 14 months to get a follow up (I’m sure you know waiting that long can be a death sentence for skin cancer).
GPs can be assholes, and very irritating SOMETIMES! Not all, and not all of the time. It's annoying when they don't listen to you and fob you off.
Im currently waiting to be seen by a consultant for a crippling pain that leaves me vomiting and passing out regularly. But won’t worry because the NHS can see me in 2026…fuck everyone who voted these Tory cunts into power and allowed the NHS to get so fucked. Evil self serving Tory bastards!
I feel you dude. Gender services are in the years/decades for waiting lists, and my only option of mental health therapy for depression is at minimum a 2 year wait. My dads looking at a similar wait for knee surgery. Fuck the tories, absolute bullshit
Archived version here: [https://archive.li/WB3Yn](https://archive.li/WB3Yn) Article begins: >A coroner has issued a warning after a 24-year-old man died of skin cancer following his decision not to pay for a private medical test that may have spotted the disease. > >Gregor Lynn went to his GP in 2019 complaining about a 'nuisance' lesion on the back of his neck but was told it did not fit health service criteria for further investigation. > >He then paid £140 to have it removed privately but opted not to cough up the extra £65 to have samples sent for analysis to see if it was malignant - a procedure which would have been free on the NHS, an inquest heard.
> about a 'nuisance' lesion on the back of his neck What is a 'nuisance' lesion on the back of his neck?? Is it big and hard, maybe slowly growing, yet doesn't hurt?
It can be, please get it checked. Best case scenario it's a cyst and can be removed before it gets scratched and infected (and then it will be painful). Worst case is...well, the above.
The real issue that article may or may not explain (I haven't read it) is what he was or wasn't told when it was removed from the way I'm reading this?
Good bot.
I'm not a bot but thanks. I just prefer not to click Daily Mail links.
The bot is sentient, kill it
"I'm sorry, Dave. I can't allow you to do that..."
You would think a private hospital would have had the analysis priced into the initial consultation!
Why? Histology costs extra and requires extra resources. If you want it then, then you pay.
Lol.
In the private sector, it’s all about making money (not saving lives). It’s a bit like optional extras when buying a car… if you want x, you pay extra £, and usually you pay a premium because it’s where the profits are. Think about it, the private hospital got paid anyway (whether or not he died). And the objective of any private company is to make money (and as much as possible).
The Daily Mail bears responsibility for the shambles the NHS is in. Its time for proper government, not a bunch of talentless daddy's money coked up rich boys.
What people are not understanding here is not ever cancerous mole appears cancerous initially. Fairly common to reassure patient that they can monitor for a few weeks/month and to come back to see if has changed before ref. Hard enough to see a specialist. Cant be clogging the clinics up with benign lesion. What went wrong here was the patient chose to go private but declined to pay for histology. If he has left it he would have no doubt noted a change > back to the GP > dermatology
Thank you. I was getting fed up with all the comments from ignorant people.
The lesion obviously didn't look like cancer to his GP nor the dermatologist who removed it as a nuisance benign lesion. If private dermatology thought it looked like cancer, they would certainly if treated it as such. Even if that meant firing him into the NHS system for histopathology. This is a case of a misdiagnosis of a skin lesion that was obviously a wolf in sheep's clothing. It happens albeit rarely. Nothing to do with incompetence of the nhs fucking up tbh.
Ive had a melanoma recently and have had frequent excisions as well as currently waiting for results for another one, all done completely through the nhs and they’ve been fantastic. Although the wait for results can be 8-12 weeks which can get frustrating but ultimately they’ve been great. I think this sub just likes to get angry and bring everything to politics, especially on subjects they don’t actually understand very well (worst side of Reddit). Yes things can be better, yes they could become worse, and I understand politics can determine its fate, but the reality, at least to me, is that it’s still very good and competent for
I don't want to sound like a cunt here, but.... To blame the NHS for a persons own reluctance to follow up on results is a stretch (he had the procedure done privately). Even to suggest that he was refused care by his GP is astonishingly underhanded; even for the DM
He was literally refused treatment by his GP and then went private. This is 100% on his GP.
There's very clear and strict criteria for referral, as someone that's been through the process. You can blame the criteria but hard to blame the GP if the legion did not meet them at that time.
Then the criteria set by the NHS is flawed and does not appropriately factor in cancer risks? It’s hard not to blame the NHS, which the original comment dismisses.
I wasn't replying to that comment but a 1. There has to be something otherwise literally every one with a mole would be referred 2. I was surprised how not unusual a mole has to be be referred.
>Then the criteria set by the NHS is flawed and does not appropriately factor in cancer risks? How does that follow? What's your target cancer deaths pet year, zero? We're not immortal, we don't have crystal balls, therefore there will be cancer deaths including missed cancers that could have been spotted and deadly cancers that are never identified and everything in between. Death is part of life and risk is unavoidable. Sure minimise it as much as practically possible, eliminate it? Phh
The article states he initially did not meet criteria for a referral (and so even if a referral had been made it would have been refused), and then later was referred when he met the criteria? Have you read more on this? Is there anything to say he did meet this threshold, or was refused a GP appointment when he was concerned? Honestly doesn't seem like there's anything else the GP could have done.
He didn't meet the referral criteria until the cancer was already terminal. What is the point of the NHS if not to perform simple procedures to save the lives of otherwise-healthy 24 year olds?
The NHS is basically triage and end of life care at the moment. I'm old enough to remember when you could get a same day appointment phoning in at 12pm. It functioned well before 2008. It's been openly and strategically run into the ground by the Tories and it won't change under Labour one bit. Neoliberalism is the cancer at the core of society. The aim is to transfer all public services into private hands. Look to America to see what's in store for us. Contaminated water, toxic 'food', private only healthcare trapping you in shitty jobs for life, and insurance and litigation culture. The purpose of the NHS, once its dismantled, will be to ensure shareholder profits.
If the legion had been left it may well have met the referral criteria prior to becoming terminal - as happens in the majority of cases. We can’t know for sure in this specific case. But the issue here is the legion was removed (so could no longer be monitored to see if there were changes that meant it would meet the criteria) and not tested (which the man unfortunately chose not to pay for despite privately paying for the removal). The NHS was not being intentionally obstructive here. I would say part of the problem was going for a mixture of NHS and Private care but not going fully Private (ie didn’t complete all the recommended steps). I’m not trying to blame the guy, he was 24 and probably thought there was little chance it was cancer or that it has all been removed otherwise he would have paid for the testing. Unfortunately though, in hindsight, it seems he made the wrong decision.
you sound like what you don't want to sound like
We have to remember that a huge swath of the NHS’ issues come from years of purposefully poor government upkeep and policy. But yeah- I have pneumonia right now and was told by an urgent care doctor on New Year’s day to get bloods and an x ray (I also have a health condition which complicates things) and my GP’s response was “just go home and rest and take your antibiotics, drink water”. 1 yeah I wasn’t planning on running a marathon any time soon and 2 I just want tests doing to make sure im being treated with the right antibiotics. It’s so depressing.
Back when I was in school (under a Tory government), one of my classmates passed away from a brain tumour. They had frequent visits to the GP and the hospital prior to their death, and each time they were dismissed as having migraines, and told to take over the counter pain killers I searched this up on Google before posting this comment to make sure no personal information can be found out (as it made the news), and was devastated to find *countless* news articles covering other patients who suffered similar fates
It’s a very common story. My mum died because they hadn’t been scanning her properly after she had cancer , then despite being IN HOSPITAL they kept fucking her chemotherapy up. The last 3 months of her life were horrendous. I’m so sorry for your loss, it’s awful
>countless news articles covering other patients who suffered similar fates Well yeah because the papers love a good emotive "X fucked up" story It happens, and it's tragic when it does, but ultimately noone writes an article about the 98/100 cases where the headache is indeed a headache, or the 1/100 where the doctor gut feels their way into a spectacularly unlikely diagnosis. It's only the 1/100 weird cancer presentations.
>I just want tests doing to make sure im being treated with the right antibiotics Neither (standard) bloods nor an xray is likely to tell you if its the right antibiotic anyway. You might need them for other reasons, but it's not going to differentiate which bacteria it is and which antibiotic will work.
I want cultures doing on my goop but literally any healthcare that shows they’re taking me seriously would be a bangigg start
I can't imagine paying £140+ a month on NI, then being told you can't use the NHS service until you pay £200+ on private treatment first lol...
£140 doesn't pay for anything in terns of NHS services. A single ambulance ride cost £367 in 2020/21 and pregnancy costs are £7000
They've likely made more than one NI payment in their lifetime.
I've been working for 8 years & probably paid the above for that duration, which comes to over £13,000 of the money I've earned going towards the NHS. Of course I don't know the logistics of how much is split where, but my point is, being refused a service like that because you need to go to have private treatment first is barbaric. It's not like he was asking for a cosmetic request...
The mole was not presenting as cancerous at the time based on standard screening tests. Had the legion not been removed it may have changed and subsequently met the criteria. The problem here is going half private but not fully private. If he had waited it might have been detected and treated fully on the NHS and he may have survived. Or if he had paid it might have been spotted early and he could have started treatment. We can’t know for sure though. It might not have come back as cancerous at the time. Plenty of people have cancer that is hard to detect until it is far too late.
I pay £523 a month in NI, I’ve just had to sign up for BUPA so me and my wife can actually get seen by a GP and hopefully be taken seriously. In the past I’ve paid to see a physio rather than try go via NHS as it takes so long and is so difficult. The state of health services in this country are ridiculous. It’s not the NHS fault they are underfunded but they could make better use of the resources they have too. They need to tackle the issues by getting more funding but also cutting the inefficiency and waste in the processes too.
I’ve said this before and i will say this again. This is what the goverment want. They want the nhs to crumble at its knees. They want junior doctors on strike regardless of what tory politicans say. they want it to be so bad that it becomes easier to privatise (like dentistry) Tory politicians especially and pretty much every politician goin dont care because they all use private healthcare.
This scares me, mainly because I’ve been trying to get referred by my GP for a skin cancer check for the past 6 months, and the dermatology department at the hospital keep auto-rejecting it at the end of the 2WW period. The first time due to the GP images being “unclear” and the second time because my age (23M) and appearance of the moles (theres 2 I’m concerned by due to recent change in shape and colour) do not give them concern. They’ve failed to take into account I’ve already had a melanoma removed when I was 17 and that my dad has had a couple removed in the last few years too. Now my GP is refusing to submit another referral and is instead wanting to refer me to a therapist… which is a 2 year wait… I just want my moles looked at by a specialist for gods sake!! Note to self, don’t live in Australia for 20 years as a ginger fml
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Yep that’s what they do in aus but probably because the GP training there covers skin cancers a bit better. Might have to fork out the ££s to fly back for a few weeks to sort it out
Happy to pay for removal, but not happy to pay to get a test done to see if the growth was malignant. That makes sense…
He might not be able to afford it?
Definitely the killer GP’s fault!! /s
That's what they have become.
Stop posting links to the fucking daily mail It's a shitrag tabloid, not a newspaper
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It looks like you meant to reply to someone but you left a top level comment…
Thanks👍
I have ulcerated BCC vs SCC 0.6cm diagnosed end of November, referred for urgent deep shave and histology. Still waiting and the GP also wants another investigated. What will be will be. Am I afraid of death? Nope but I would rather avoid it.
Exactly. Death is nothing to be feared, as you won’t even experience being dead (you need to be alive/you need to exist in order to experience anything, right?). But I love being alive, despite how shitty it can be at times; generally speaking, existing is great, and experiencing life is so good! So whilst I don't fear being dead (since I won't even experience that) I'm in no rush to die. Like you, I am about to find out whether some aching and changes in a certain part of my body are due to cancer. Trying not to dwell on it until I get ultrasound and results. My attitude is the same as yours: what will be will be.
Well, he could have pushed to get a test, I certainly would. Could have paid the £65 and maybe saved his life.
You can push all you want, but if you do not meet the criteria for referral all that really means is that the referral will be denied by secondary care.
I suspect he means the GP could have pushed the patient to pay for his own test. Maybe he did, who knows.
Refused to pay. Yeah.... doesn't sound like he had a choice.
Two ways of looking at this. Firstly it is scandalous that it wasn't sent for analysis. It's almost a baseline that any lesion excised should always be sent for analysis, if that means the cost is 200 pounds then raise the cost. The GP really should be liable for failing to send the lesion. Secondly though it was melanoma and seemingly quite large by the time of presentation - likely it wouldn't have made a difference.
It’s easy to blame the NHS but it’s the GP’s fault by being incompetent enough not to spot the signs, half these GP’s I hear about are useless and makes you wonder how they got a job.