I THOUGHT I’d share my perspective on an issue whose solution vexes most of us: NHS treatment in Oxford.

For those readers who like happy endings to stories, I guess the happy ending before you read on is that I love life, have a wonderful wife and am in many respects fit and well except for the fact that I am exhausted.

I have suffered from an intensely painful facial nerve condition called trigeminal neuralgia since it was diagnosed in 2007 at the age of 29.

Since then, I have seen pain specialists at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, travelled to Sheffield to explore non-invasive brain treatments, before finally being persuaded to have an operation called a micro-vascular decompression about 18 months ago at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

I am in intense pain, frequently.

For those who have not heard of the condition, trigeminal neuralgia sends short, stabbing bursts of pain down one side of the face.

It renders the sufferer totally unable to talk, eat, kiss, or generally function properly. It disturbs sleep, it disturbs one’s waking hours, it comes on suddenly and then disappears into remission for a while. Its influence creeps into, moulds, and shapes every aspect of a sufferer’s home and professional life.

Repeated operation cancellations extend my pain. One postponement and two cancellations – one in hospital prior to going into theatre whilst in surgical robes and socks, and the second the day before, en route to driving to Oxford – have tested my patience.

My operation requires the highly skilled work of neurosurgeons, but because there is no dedicated emergency unit for neuroscience at the John Radcliffe Hospital, emergency cases take priority over so-called “elective surgeries” such as mine. NHS pledges leave me cynical.

If one’s operation is cancelled at the last minute on the day, a trust is meant to reschedule your operation for an alternative day in a 28-day window after the cancellation.

Operations can be cancelled in perpetuity: there is no impact of this on anyone else other than the patient.

Reading Jeremy Hunt’s pledge to enforce Saturday working on overstretched individuals simply makes me well up with rage and he must be a very silly man indeed.

My consultant is working her socks off: an excellent reputation in concert with a never-ending stream of casualties combine to produce a toxic situation where there is never a free diary slot. Punitive measures for hospitals won’t work.

If any of your readers have similar experiences, I encourage them to share them to make them known.

Dr DAN LE HERON
Moorside Close, Maidenhead, Berkshire