I fully understand your anger,  because I have felt the same.  In 18 months of cancer treatment we have seen our Mc Millan nurses only at appointment s.  Then in February of this year when struggling with the after effects of radiotherapy I called for help only to find one was on 3 months leave and the other off as well.  All they left me with was an office number and no one there could help.  We're seeing them today for scan results which we should have had two weeks ago but they altered the date..  So two more weeks of worry and my husband went into a depressed state.  So you are not alone and yes there are an awful lot of good nurses but in life you sometimes draw the short straw.  Anger can eat you up so why not write down your feelings on this and either post it off or tear it into little pieces and put it in the recycling.   I do hope that your situation improves for you.  Best wishes  Carol .   

Hi,

I'm so sorry to read about your awful experience with the MacMillan service. It is totally at odds with the experience my family had when my Grandad, my Mum and finally me were receiving cancer treatment with support from MacMillan. 

You would be doing other patients, and MacMillan, a favour by making a formal written complaint about this individual nurse, to stop this happening again. MacMillan employ over 4,500 nurses, they only need one of them to be inadequate for their reputation to be damaged. 

Best wishes

Dave

Have to say that my experience of MacMillan nurses is quite patchy. I’ve encountered two at my local hospital, one is absolutely amazing, she understands about trying to live a normal life wherever possible when treatment ends. She’s friendly, helpful and extremely knowledgeable about the kinds of support that are available. She gets it. The other one is pretty tactless, good at handing out leaflets but her knowedge and understanding of what we need was very lacking. Like I said, patchy. 

So sorry that I need to agree with you.   Currently going through the same experience and very disappointed with the service recieved from MacMillan and the NHS in general.  I was always under the impression they were all 'angels'.  Well I can say that they must be riding on a false reputation because they have not shown compassion for my family.  The whole experience is like Carry on Nursing.  But this isn't a comedy, it's our loved one who pays the price for their incompetence.  I am so angry I could burst.

Hi i personaly think drs have a shocking record of misdianosis and leaving things till its to late in this country waiting months for scans they took my partners chances away you hear it so many times on here . The trouble is we see charitys showing that everyone survives now but its not the case then when it effects us it makes it feel worse .yes ive seen good and bad mc millan but we shouldnt be relying on charitys like mcmillan for care but it realy is a post code lottery and a two tear health system .paul

Hi Alibali,

I’m so sorry, but not surprised, to read that the service you’re receiving from MacMillan and the NHS isn’t up to standard. 

In my first chemo session things were pretty shambolic. I had a talk with the nurse in charge and she said that her small team were under-funded and that two vacancies had been left deliberately unfilled to avoid going over budget. She had two staff members genuinely off sick with flu (no-one on chemo wants to be treated by someone who has flu). This meant they had only half the staff they needed. She actually handed out feedback forms to everyone and begged us all to make a formal complaint. 

As patients we shouldn’t have to complain but sometimes that’s the only thing which has any impact. Sometimes the staff will actually welcome a complaint as it will reinforce their own protests about an unfair situation. Sometimes staff are incompetent and in breach of the NMC’s Code of Conduct and need to be called out.

Good luck

Dave

Paul,

The whole situation makes me so cross. When this government introduced local clinical commissioning groups led by GPs to set local priorities almost everyone in the NHS said this was a stupid idea and would lead to a postcode lottery. It did and the government, after wasting billions on this top down restructuring, are now quietly restructuring again to try to “reduce the current diversity in outcomes”. 

How the h3ll did we get to a situation where the NHS has become so dependent on charities like MacMillan and Maggies to deliver services that we pay taxes to be delivered by the NHS.

I also get bugged by schmalzy adverts which seem to imply that we all live happily ever after. The plain fact is that half of us who contract cancer will be killed by it and those who survive or live with cancer and our families get precious little mental health support during and after our cancer journeys. 

Apologies for the rant!

Dave

just been really interesting reading your post, because this is the first that I’ve read that feels the same as me. I lost my dad 4 weeks ago to cancer, he was terminal. We had a nurse come and “introduce” herself to my dad which was just asking him the same old questions he’d answered to all of the doctors “I’m not feeling okay, I’m dying and it’s upsetting”. My dad was poorly for two months and they came twice for a 10/15 minute “chat”. One of the nurses even said she’d forgot her thermometer and blood pressure things as she’d forgot it at home? I was caring for my dad and my 12 month son at my home. Macmillan promised they’d care and support us but in all honesty it was the hospice that offered that. Even my dad said he didn’t think they were great. And they weren’t, they sound like they help a lot of people but for some reason we found it to be the complete opposite. Your not alone 

Dont apologise about ranting dave totaly agree with you  saw it from the inside .there was quite a famous guy i cant remember his name as was not myself at the time on the news he said he was concentrating on money for Alzheimer's as cancer was now curable i ciuldnt beleive the ignorance i was hearing . Liz had a very complex medical history so nearly lost her a few times the mistakes ive seen liz had croniic pancreatitis so had to have artificial enzymes called creons with every meal she i walked in the ward she was having her tea i said weres your creons she said they would let her have them they were locked up i saw the nurse they said she could only have one a day i said get that cuboird unlock she needs them even with a snack i had to explain to the nurse how they work another time i had to suggest to the nurse in recovery how to use the new bp moniter they were using and thats just two that was a hospital they made a tv program on cant give name . It got to the point were i checked on everything they did and thats dangerous in the end we got her into a great hospital unfortunatly it was to late now the nurses and drs were great with her and not that it matters they looked after me to . So thats one health orthoraty compared to another thats just a small amount of mistakes made. Paul