I thought long and hard about making this post. Eventually I made a throwaway as I'd expect comeback if I used my real account.

Anyway, I just want to say enough is enough. I am an Oliver McGowan lead trainer, I am also a medical professional and I feel I do a good job with the training as I am realistic around what fellow staff can and can't actually do.

My concerns started when the new slides were published. We kick off with 20 minutes of Paula talking, that's only going to lose the audience, it's not engaging and serves little purpose and to be honest it's insulting because that's my job. we then move on, gone are the slides recognising the systemic failures, LD patients being twice as likely to die an avoidable death hits home, we now have to gloss over that apparently and all the other hard to swallow facts from LEDER. Then we move to Autism, no more slide on neurodivergence, it's almost like ADHD and other ND conditions don't matter even though they often go hand in hand with autism. There are quite a few other changes which sanitise the content whilst pointing the finger at staff and not the system and that doesn't feel right. Some changes are good, it does flow a bit better, but overall it feels negative and no longer a constructive discussion around how we can change the bigger picture.

The almost final straw was a post by Paula McGowan on linked in (not sure if links are allowed so look it up, might be on other socials too)
She edited it recently, but she was quick to jump on the social media bandwagon on the back of the Yorkshire wildlife park tragedy, clearly stating he was autistic and needed compassion. Read the comments, some people did call her out. Her post did everything the training says is wrong, but she did it anyway very publicly and was more than happy to respond to anyone who agreed with her. Ultimately this was a bit low and she didn't give his grieving family an ounce of thought when she basically repeated what Karen on facebook diagnosed purely because he pointed his little fingers.

The final straw was today, with another post on the above tragedy.
To quote Paula "William Chapman's death should remind us of the urgent need to look beyond labels, challenge our prejudices and treat every human being with dignity and kindness."
There is nothing more dignified than having your death used as a social media points scoring exercise. I'm open minded about what actually happened last week, but would be having this conversation about someone with mental issues if they had harmed someone other than himself?

Was she kind by putting in an SAR and then publicly slating those who looked at Oliver's records after his death? Yes it's a breach, and unprofessional, but she show them no mercy or forgiveness, these people have now lost a career on the back of one mistake and a vindictive mother.

I understand she's a grieving mother so I'll be kind. But the bottom line is she needs to step away and reflect before she ruins everything she built.

EDIT: I was sent a screenshot of the unedited post, everything about it is contrary to the ethos of the training.

This may seem like a really stupid question but i have bad anxiety about this type of thing for some reason. Because it’s the weekend, will they not call me until monday now? Is it worth putting in another request or calling again? I generally never go to the GP unless i desperately need to so this may be a very common occurrence, which is fine i would just like to know what to expect.
any advice helps thankyou!

(Not sure if this really counts as a complaint as it's more a concern, but this was the best fitting tag). I have searched this everywhere and only saw one one other reddit thread of someone who had this experience.

I'm a woman in a wheelchair with very limited mobility and had a spine x-ray over a year ago where they made me change into the hospital gown inside the X ray room, whilst three clinicians, all women (not sure if they were radiographers or what, one of them did the actual x-ray) kinda stood there watching me change awkwardly.

I felt pressured into changing quickly to get it over with, but I really wish they had let me do it in a cubicle where I am comfortable and can take my time slowly without causing myself pain or injury (which is what happened, I was in agony from forcing myself to change quickly because it felt humiliating and embarrassing with them stood there). They seemed in a hurry too, they asked if I wanted help but I didn't, so I felt bad asking for a cubicle and I wasn't sure if there even was one available that would fit my wheelchair or if I would be holding them up further as they seemed keen to just do the x-ray and I was expecting that they would let me keep my clothes on as I had no metal on me.

I was asked to do another spine x-ray at a different hospital, and as you can probably imagine, I simply don't want to go to the appointment. The whole previous experience has put me off.

I am not sure if this is the protocol at all hospitals for disabled patients or the what is normal with limited mobility patients and changing into hospital gowns. At no point did anyone ask me if I wanted a booth or privacy, they just handed me the gown and made me change in front of them... I am able to change by myself etc., it just takes me a very long time, usually, and I don't like being pressured or put on the spot like that.

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice and a bit of a reality check. I’ve just submitted a formal complaint to my practice manager, but I’m feeling incredibly frustrated about how a Senior GP Partner treated me, and how it’s been written up in my official medical records.

I was having a follow up appointment with a GP . During our consultation, we were discussing the next necessary course of action, which she had previously indicated should be an endoscopy. To progress this, she brought a Senior GP into the room for a second opinion.

The moment he walked in, his attitude was completely dismissive and condescending. Regarding the endoscopy, he bluntly said, "I don't even know why you want one, they're terrible." He also claimed that the surgery "doesn't treat digestive issues”, which I know is factually incorrect for primary care.

When I tried to explain that the prescribed medication was giving me chest pains, he told me I should "just tolerate the side effects". To make matters worse, while I was mid sentence trying to speak, he physically turned his back on me and started talking over me to his colleague. Right at the very end of the appointment, he dismissively told me to "go watch a video on the procedure and then tell me whether you want one," and then he just walked off out of the room. I was left feeling totally belittled and bullied by a senior professional.

I checked my NHS app today to see what they wrote in my medical notes, and I honestly feel sick. The notes say: "discussed with [senior doctors name], who kindly explained..."

There was absolutely nothing "kind" about how he spoke to me or treated me. I felt entirely intimidated and spoken down to by a senior doctor while his colleague watched. Infact she, even apologised to me after the senior GP left because she could see that I was on the verge of tears.

I understand that endoscopies might not be a pleasant experience, but how am I supposed to know that? Surely there’s a professional and nicer way to explain it to a patient.

How do I go about challenging this or making sure the practice manager knows the word "kindly" is a complete fabrication?

I got a job as a band 3 technician in decontamination services for the NHS. I have a BSc in biomed and have applied for dozens of lab jobs, NHS and non-NHS, not even a single interview.

MLA jobs in the NHS were limited and posts wouldn’t be up for long as they receive so many applicants. In the end i just lacked experience as I didn’t do a placement, i got my CV checked too so im not sure if that was the issue.

I was just wondering if it is realistic to move from decontamination services after 1 year or so to a role more relevant to my biomed degree?

Hello! I recently got invited to interview for the position of Information Governance Clerk, primarily within the Access To Information team.

Has anyone done this role or similar before? Is it a case of submitting medical records requests for patients and / or higher bodies such as the police / solicitors / government etc?

Any examples would be welcomed! Thank you!

I have just been referred to the Flok Health app after waiting over 18 weeks since my MRI for physiotherapy, only to find out they have referred me to an app.

Unsurprisingly, I am quite disappointed and angry about this, especially after waiting this long, only to get an AI app rather than a real person.

In my opinion, this app should be given to people during their wait for an in-person appointment, not as a replacement. I am usually all for the use of AI, but for things like this regarding health, I do not believe it should be used.

Has anyone had the disappointing pleasure of using the Flok Health app? What are your opinions, and have you found it to be useful?

I am interested to hear people's thoughts and opinions.

TIA x

Hi everyone,

I have a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree from Pakistan and an MSc in Pharmaceutical Science from the UK.

I'm currently looking for a job in the NHS but don't have GPhC registration, so I can't apply for registered pharmacist or pharmacy technician roles.

I'm open to pharmacy-related, research, laboratory, clinical trials, or other healthcare roles, ideally at Band 3, 4, or 5.

I'd appreciate some advice:

1. Which NHS roles should I realistically target with my qualifications?
2. What's the quickest way to secure an NHS job without previous NHS experience?
3. Has anyone with a similar background managed to get into the NHS?

I'm flexible on location and my main priority is to get my foot in the door as soon as possible.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I don’t understand in what world it makes sense to write a form for an appointment and then getting offered just a call appointment with a pharmacist 2 weeks later ??? In the meantime am i supposed to just make friends with my uti? How do people deal with this because I’m getting really frustrated by having to jump through so many hoops to get a solution to a problem that in my home country, for all the issues it has, i would have been able to get it done in one or 2 days tops. I keep wondering if the there’s a trick i have yet to discover when it comes to getting an appointment when you actually need it

My boyfriend had a K wire finger surgery on Wednesday 14th for a broken finger. We’re supposed to be flying to Amsterdam on the 23rd for 4 nights and need a fit to fly form filled out, which is specific to the airline, and need this at least 48 hours in advance of the flight.

We were told to contact the physician so emailed them on the Wednesday asking if this could be done by Monday 19th at the latest, and they said there is no guarantee it will be done one time.

We won’t want to risk cancelling or rescheduling the flights because that still needs a medical fit to fly note for our insurance to pay us back, and it needs to be provided before we cancel or reschedule.

We also don’t want just not to turn up for the flight.

We’ve spoken to the GP, and a private hospital who both said they won’t fill out the form.

Does anyone have any other ideas for what to do?

Hello everyone, I hope someone is able to lend some advise. I'm posting on behalf of my mum who has worked for the NHS for over 21 years at a large hospital.

For years now she has been coming home in tears due to the lack of professionalism and compassion she sees towards her patients on a daily basis. She has tried making complaints but this has only ever gone against her. Her ward manager is a lot younger than my mum and is very clicky with some of the other staff members - she is essentially turning a blind eye to the poor standards of care being given and allows certain staff members to stand by as my mum is struggling to deal with elderly patients. She is also pretty much managing my mum out of a job. Tonight was the final straw for me. She has come home absolutely distraught! I will be emailing the hospital myself - anonymously - and will also be reaching out to the local newspaper. I've told my mum for many years now to try and gather evidence of the wrongdoings on both the staff and the managers part, but she has always refused to take concealed video footage, as this breaches certain laws, or so she tells me. She does however have people who she has worked with in the past confirm that they will give statements. She has spoken with the union and exhausted all other support networks, where her concerns have unfortunately always fallen on deaf ears. Is anyone able to point me in the right direction where I can begin to surface these issues with people that will actually take action?

Thank you.

Asking for a close friend who graduated Aug 2025 from Midwifery.
There has been no band 5 jobs in London since.
Her registration lapsed in Aug 2026 and she left the NMC register one day before automatic disqualification.
No jobs in between.
Now she'd like to give it a try for one more year and trying to rejoin the NMC register.
The website is asking for a referee from someone in NMC register that she knows and has been in touch with in the last 6 months?
And a referee from her latest employer which in her case there is none? (both mandatory fields)
What is the best course of action here? Should she contact NMC?

Does anyone have any experience or have you heard of anyone getting an offer after an interview where you didn’t get the specialist nursing post you applied for however got put on a waiting list for similar posts for 6 months? I’m just curious.. should I still be hopeful?

My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer (triple negative) back in March that had unfortunately spread to the adjacent lymph node and a small area in her pelvis.

The plan was that she would undergo chemotherapy and then have the primary and the lymph node removed a few weeks later and that a course of radiotherapy may be required for her pelvis.

She had a couple of scans (CT/MRI) prior to her last chemo which showed that the primary and secondaries had reduced and there was nothing new, so we thought we were on track.

Then it was just radio silence, we heard nothing for weeks and I had to start to chase various secretaries to try to get answers.

We finally had a meeting with her oncologist on Monday and apparently the plan has changed, she will no longer be getting surgery as the cancer has already spread!

The current recommendation is that she continues with the Phesgo injections and also takes estrogen suppression medication; the scans will be repeated in a month or so to check.

After the scans she'll be referred back to the MDT .

My wife is a radiographer who has worked within the NHS for over 30 years so she knows a bit about how it all works.

She is struggling cognitively with chemo brain so I'm having to do a lot of the leg work and I don't know where to go for here?

i’m at the beginning of my mrcp journey now with 0 NHS experience however all i keep seeing are discouraging comments and insane waiting times for jobs. i’m aiming for non training jobs ofc as i know IMT can be a far stretch. do i actually have a chance here or am i being delusional?

I have been going through extreme destress and upset after a recent re-occurence of a family betryal. I get a call from the nhs. I explained i needed to speak to someone because of thats going on, struggling to sleep, relentless thinking etc... and need a 3rd party view on things.

Later in the call when asked about substance abuse, i shared that i used cannabis daily.

Immediately it seemed, the cause was now aparant to them. I was referred to pathways, and told about how much of a terrible drug it was.

I understand weed can cause mental health issues but for me I find it helps alot. The main reason this annoyed me so much is because it feels like because I smoke it negates my right to be depressed, and its like they think the family betryal is only a problem because I smoke.

I was also given advice regarding someone to speak to about my problems later in the call.

Am I right to feel abit annoyed here?

Hello there, I'm an italian MD specialised in radiation oncology with 3 years of experience in palliative care in Italy. I recently moved to Scotland (Edimburgh) for family reasons and I'm currently gathering all the paperwork to practice as a doctor here. I’d love to hear from fellow doctors—ideally in palliative care—about what working in Scotland is actually like (e.g., home visits, night shifts, ward life, etc.). Any info will be appreciated.

I’ve got an interview for a B4 RA role in the Mental Health Services Dept of a Trust, and they have been pretty vague about visa sponsorship as below:

If you are successful and you require sponsorship, your eligibility will be reviewed in line with the information on the UK Government’s website. Your offer of employment could be withdrawn if the role is not eligible for sponsorship, and you are not otherwise able to evidence your right to work in the UK. 

I’m confused as to what to do, as my grad visa is ending in around 3 months, and travelling for this interview is a considerable time and financial commitment. Any advice? Thank you!

Hello,

After struggling to get answers on the nhs over my worsening symptoms and normal bloods.

I went to a private gp for a tailored blood package, which has come back with some answers.

Now I can't really afford to go fully private so I was given a formal letter with test results and request for further investigations.

Which my NHS gp is taking seriously and has requested guidance.

The issue is, I didn't fully read the letter before handing it over to gp surgery to be scanned on my medical records.

There are some timeline mix ups and relevant information missing.

I really struggle to describe symptoms face to face given the fatigue and brain fog, turns my brain to moosh.

The receptionist at my gp surgery said she can upload what ever I write but, I'm not sure if it should be in letter form and who to address it to?

Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks.

I didnt know what tag to use lol, but i went to my physio appointment (herts area) she said she was going to refer me to get an mri done, does anyone know the waiting time, or how long it takes?

Hey everyone, I needed to vent this because the sheer amount of diagnostic failure my partner and I have experienced over the past few months has left us both angry and deeply worried about how the current primary care system treats ordinary patients.
For context: I (24M) am a scientist, and my partner (24F) is a hospital radiographer. You’d think having medical literacy and understanding how diagnostic pathways work would make navigating the healthcare system straightforward. It didn't.
Here is how primary care failed both of us on two completely different conditions:

Case 1: My Eyes
I developed metamorphopsia (visual distortion) and severe photosensitivity (high sensitivity to light). I managed to get an OCT scan from spec-savers that showed clear structural changes in my retina, which is a massive red flag in eye care that warrants an urgent specialist referral.

The GP’s response: Looked at it, dismissed it as "dry macular eye," and told me point-blank that there was "nothing to be done." No referral to the hospital eye service. No follow-up. Just sent me on my way to live with progressing visual distortion.

The Reality: I had to advocate for myself, bypass the GP, and pay out-of-pocket for private care. The specialist immediately recognized it as a Stargardt disease subtype (a genetic macular dystrophy that likely leads to blindness over time).

The Aftermath: I’m now awaiting genetic testing results (ABCA4 line) and managed to source NoIR 97 filter glasses myself which are know to enable me to keep my eye sight for much longer, and have made a massive difference to my daily glare and comfort. But if I had listened to my GP, I’d be sitting at home in the dark believing I was helpless.

Case 2: My Girlfriend’s medical dismissal.

While I was fighting for my eyes, my girlfriend developed severe, debilitating pelvic pain, pain during sex (dyspareunia), secondary vaginismus, chronic fatigue, sleep loss, and loss of appetite.

The GP’s response (x4): Over the course of weeks, four separate GPs told her it was "just a virus" and sent her away.

The Gaslighting: Despite her telling them her symptoms made her daily life miserable, they repeatedly forced her to take pregnancy tests at multiple appointments instead of running actual pelvic investigations. When she finally went back with me standing silently in the room, they suddenly agreed to do an exam, only to default to treating it as a basic "infection" without confirming anything on swabs.

The Reality: In total desperation, with no primary care doctor willing to look further, she ended up in A&E. The hospital team immediately recognized the severity, ran urgent scans to rule out cervical cancer, and after weeks of specialist testing confirmed adenomyosis (her uterine lining growing deep into the muscular wall).
The Aftermath: She is finally on proper medical management and pelvic floor therapy, but it took a hospital emergency visit to get basic gynecological care.

When we look back on this, what terrifies us isn't just that these individual GPs were clueless, it’s the realization of what happens to people who don't have our background.
We knew how to read scans, we knew what medical terms meant, we knew when a doctor was giving us scientifically impossible answers ("a virus doesn't cause vaginismus"), and we had the privilege/stamina to keep pushing, pay privately, or go to A&E.
What happens to someone who doesn't speak English as a first language? Who doesn't know what an OCT scan means? Who can't afford private care? Who trusts their GP implicitly when told "it's just a virus"?
They get sent home. They live in pain. Their vision degrades. Their conditions worsen.
The 10-minute appointment model and aggressive gatekeeping mean GPs are defaulting to low-effort shortcuts instead of basic clinical curiosity. If two medical/scientific professionals were treated like crazy, hysterical, or uneducated patients, the system isn't just under pressure, it’s actively failing the people who need it most.
Has anyone else had to become their own specialist just to get a basic diagnosis?

I've just started a course at university as a mature student and recently found out that the NHS does a full employment check. A couple of years ago I was unemployed for 3 years due to mental health but have pulled through and started working again. I've worked for a couple of years and am now about to start a degree. I suspect I've had CPTSD the entire time. Will this affect my chances of getting a job when I graduate? I know the laws around discrimination, but in reality there is so much stigma around employment gaps and mental health.

Any insight would be great.

Thank you.

I’ve been a nurse for 7 years, currently band 6 and progressively got tired of the low pay at the NHS. I’ve been thinking about applying for a healthcare management MBA and came across the NHS GMTS. Does anyone have experience/ has heard of someone going for it as a RN? Is it a good thing to do? I started the application but keep thinking about the fact that we’re expected to resign from our jobs. If anyone has completed the training what are the jobs prospects? Are you working in or out the NHS? Thank you in advance ☺️