Dear LPG,

I am a pensioner who, for the past two years, has been living on one of the Canary Islands.  I have been reading what is said about the NHS on your pages and think that the situation must be even worse than when I was last being treated in England.

I came to Lewisham on holiday over the Christmas period and stayed with my daughter.  She had occasion to visit her GP during my stay and I went along with her.  I have to say, even in the past two years, I think that things are no better with the system. 

When I last lived in Lewisham I remember having to queue at 8 o’clock in the morning, no matter how ill I was, if I wanted to get an appointment.  I remember spending quite a few mornings in the queue talking to other queue members that were standing there for up to an hour.  We would sometimes use the time to find out a little about each other’s complaints and what had brought us to the queue on the day, and I was always surprised to find that some of those people were spending all that time waiting to be treated for backaches and problems caused by standing for long periods of time, and ‘flu symptoms, while the weather would often be offering us a mixture of rain, snow and cold, although every now and then it happened in the summer too.

Two years ago, before I left Lewisham, I remember also being in a position where, after all that standing around, there would be no other appointments available and the receptionist would be instructed to advise me to come back to the queue the next day or later in that day.  I hear that this continues to be quite a common practise.  

I now find myself in a part of the world, which reminds me of the UK about thirty years ago, before Brexit, or the need for it ever arose, when the Lewisham public walked into the surgery in the knowledge that they would be seen that day,  where we knew the doctor who we were going to see and they knew us without having to depend on a collection of notes to know what was wrong and, when if the patient did not feel well enough to visit the surgery they could depend on the fact that a doctor would come out to visit them. 

I am not saying that the island that I live on is without its faults, but even though the weather is a lot more conducive to the practise of standing in an early morning queue when you are not feeling your best, telephone access also gives another dependable way to make an appointment with your GP.

What really went wrong in England, and when are they going to put it right?

CE, Canary Islands.