HSE and NHS compared, from someone who has used both

Started 16 March 2024 · 17 replies · 211 hearts · read 3.8k times

DelythBala, UK · 16 March 2024

2.3 years ago

HSE and NHS compared, from someone who has used both — putting it in its own thread so it does not get lost in the check-in.

Regional question, because I have read a great deal of advice that turns out to be true in one country only.

I have read the guides and they are good, and they are necessarily general, and my question is entirely about local specifics.

I am the only person I know doing this within a considerable distance, so this circle is genuinely my whole peer group on it.

No rush. Everything here takes three weeks anyway.

OrphBath, UK

Something practical: ask for a copy of your referral letter. Mine had an error in it that would have delayed things by months.

HollisBath, UK

The pharmacy route and the specialist route are genuinely different here and I did not understand that for a year.

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

Thank you all. Somebody arriving confused by advice written for a different country and leaving with an answer for their own is the whole job of this circle, and it only works because people say where they are.

PersisBristol, UK

What Ada described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

My GP referred me and then nothing happened for seven months, and one phone call to the service found that the referral had never arrived.

SaffHastings, UK

Gently disagreeing with Persis, or rather adding the other half of it.

Coming back to say I got there, that it took fourteen months from first asking, and that the care since has been good.

SephNorwich, UK

The waiting list where I am was quoted at eighteen months and turned out to be closer to eleven, so it is worth asking again rather than assuming.

8me too 9

TorKeswick, UK

The travel to the specialist centre was the main cost for me and moving to telephone reviews solved most of it.

AmbroseYork, UK

Nothing here is medical advice and local pathways change, so the person at your practice will always know more than any thread.

LilPreston, UK

What I got wrong was assuming a refusal was final. It was a stage, and asking what came next opened a route I had not known about.

11me too 7

BessLouth, UK

#10

Lil, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

My pharmacist has been the most consistently available person in the whole system and I would say that to anybody here.

GavinDundee, UK

#11

Reading and nodding. Nothing to add, and I wanted you to know somebody had read it.

12me too 2

BrennaEnniskillen, NI

#12

The HSE and NHS pathways are not the same and I have watched people in this circle get quite confused reading each other's experience.

NerysRhyl, UK

#13

What Bess described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

Something worth knowing: my prescription charges worked out differently once I looked into the annual arrangement properly.

PamSouthport, UK

#14

My practice has a nurse-led clinic that handles all of this and it is far more thorough than any GP appointment I have had.

BryonyMalvern, UK

#15

What I would say is that the local specifics matter enormously and general advice about the system is usually wrong for your particular area.

AdaFacilitatorManchester, UK

#16

Thank you for saying which country you are in at the top of the post. It makes every reply below it more useful and most people forget.

16me too 7

SolomonManchester, UK

#17

I went privately for the first year and then transferred across, and the transfer was much smoother than everybody had told me it would be.