The Grange Practice 2016-12-05 Person 2 5 0

I have been a patient at this practice since 1997. It's always hard work to get an appointment. I find by sending my son in person when the surgery opens first thing in the morning is the only way to get an emergency appointment the same day (as advised by a receptionist in the past). This is because the phone line is constantly engaged, apart from at lunch time when nobody answers and it just rings. Out of hours is an answer phone. My experience with the Doctors doesn't get much better to be frank. I went to see Dr.Ward after discovering a breast lump. I made him aware of my mother's breast cancer in the 1970s. He examined me and diagnosed it wasn't a tumour. Almost a year later I had returned to the surgery as the lump had increased in size. He referred me for a scan which confirmed I had breast cancer. I had a lumpectomy to remove the cancer and then had to have radiotherapy treatment to my chest to ensure any cells left after surgery were treated. Had this have been identified earlier, the radiotherapy could have been avoided. In May this year I was given 5 years clear and came out of remission by the breast consultant at QEQM Hospital. In October of this year I was diagnosed with Lung cancer after referral for an x-ray by the surgery's locum Doctor. I had attended the surgery previously with breathlessness in July, August, September and October and seen Dr.Maiden-Tillson and Dr.O.Lyell, as well as the COPD nurse all of which failed to identify the symptoms I had gone to the surgery with as one of the main indications of lung cancer. The locum Doctor however, upon examining my chest with a stethoscope, urgently referred me for x-ray. Research shows the link between lung and breast cancer indicates that scorching of the lung from radiotherapy to the breast means a patient is 80% more likely to get lung cancer within ten years of treatment to the breast. So had my breast cancer been diagnosed upon my discovery of a lump, I may not have needed radiotherapy and the likeliness of subsequently developing lung cancer reduced. Furthermore had my initial appointment regarding my breathlessness been identified as a symptom of lung cancer, I could have had been offered a better treatment than available to me at the stage my cancer is at now. As we know, early diagnosis improves prognosis. When seeing a lung consultant at the hospital, he was shocked and disgusted when seeing the inhalers I was prescribed. This is because even just from hearing my breathing, he identified COPD and discovered the inhalers I have were likely to be making my breathing worse rather then alleviating breathlessness. I appreciate the strain upon GPs in England, but think that such an obvious symptom of the biggest killing cancer in the UK shouldn't take so long to diagnose. Likewise the second biggest killer of women, breast cancer shouldn't be ignored (especially with genetic family history). How can such important factors be missed by multiple doctors? Aswell as in not identifying COPD in an asthma patient?