Park Surgery 2019-09-10 Person 1 5 0

I called this morning to try and make an appointment to see a GP as I have a lifetime illness called endometriosis which causes chronic pain in the abdomen area - I was diagnosed this back in 2015 via surgery. Since this surgery I have been doing well until the beginning of last week when my chronic pain started again. I was sent home from work on Wednesday (04/09/2019) as I could hardly walk and was crying due to the pain! Had an appointment the same afternoon to which I was prescribed codeine to try and assist with the pain. Unfortunately the codeine wasn’t helping with the pain so I tried to get another appointment on Friday (06/09/2019) to be told there was no appointments available and to go to Crawley Urgent Treatment Centre. I called 111 to see if they could assist me instead and they told me to do the same so I went there Friday evening. They took down all my details and told me my prescription for mefanamic acid was ready to collect but I didn’t even know this had been processed as no-one had told me when I called earlier to the surgery but this wasn’t a problem. My pain scale was a 9 out of 10 so the nurse told me to go to A&E as I needed to see a gynaecologist urgently. They gave me paracetamol and ibuprofen whilst I was there and gave me a piece of paper as a referral to take to A&E with me. A friend drove me to Worthing hospital as I couldn’t drive. The referral paper was ignored by reception and triage! I sat in the waiting room from approx 9:30pm until 2:30am when I was screaming in pain to which I was finally seen by a doctor! They asked me when I last had pain medication to which I told them at Crawley hospital and they seemed surprised to hear I had been at another hospital despite me showing my referral twice!! The doctor gave me naproxen, told me there was nothing they could do as no gynaecologist available and told me to book an appointment with my GP to then be referred to a gynaecologist. He sent me home with some naproxen and told me to get my mefanamic acid the next day. I collected my mefanamic acid the next day as instructed and I took one 500mg tablet. The pain started to melt away, I thought I had finally found my answer and could get my life back then two hours later I began to violently throw up followed by 24 hours of diarrhea. This caused me increased amounts of pain on top of what I was already feeling which was horrific. I slept most of Monday as I had got hardly any sleep over the Saturday & Sunday due to being extremely ill from medication. I sat on hold at 8am today (10/09/2019) for 30 mins trying to get an appointment, when I finally got through to reception they told me there was no appointments. I asked if a doctor could call me instead and I was told no this wasn’t possible as all doctors are busy. I explained I have a lifetime chronic illness which is causing me a lot of pain & been told by A&E that I need to see a GP so could I have an appointment tomorrow instead - she told me no, can only get me an appointment for 1st October and if I’m in pain to go to Crawley Urgent Treatment Centre or A&E - I explained to her they have already told me to get an appointment with a GP so they can’t help me. Told me to call back at 8am tomorrow to try and get an appointment. I then asked to speak to someone else, she was going to put me in touch with the head of practice or something along those lines, put me on hold, took me off hold for a couple of mins then hung up on me. I’m extremely disappointed with the service provided by the reception staff. I’m in chronic pain with a lifetime condition and would expect to be given an appointment as priority. I’m left yet again for another day & night being in constant pain making it hard for me to be able to walk! I’m shocked that an appointment couldn’t be booked for the next day despite me having this condition. I have already been in pain for a week with little/no relief and to be told to wait another day by someone who is not a medical professional is beyond disgusting. I will be writing this as a complaint to the surgery themselves also.