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Goodbye St Marks, Hello QMC

 I’ve made the huge decision to transfer all my medical care from St Marks in London up to Queens Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham. St Marks is the UK’s leading specialist bowel hospital and I’ve been a patient there for the last 8 years and despite living in Nottingham for almost 6 of those years I have continued to travel down for clinic appointments and tests. But all of my hospital admissions have been at QMC and this has meant that over the last 5 years the team in Nottingham has patched me up when I’ve had emergency inpatient stays and then handed me back to St Marks for follow up. This has resulted in me effectively becoming trapped in a no mans land where the team at St Marks never see how truly unwell I am and the team in Nottingham see it but can’t treat me because I’m technically not their patient. 

The last 12-18 months I’ve become more and more unwell which has made travelling independently down to London almost impossible and then when you add in Covid-19 it has become harder still. I can’t drive down myself because it’s too far (I get tired driving more than 20-30 minutes at a time) and Hubby refuses to let me use public transport because I’m in the high risk vulnerable group that’s been shielding during the pandemic. So I’ve decided that it makes sense to have all my treatment and follow up locally even if that means leaving my beloved team of specialists at St Marks. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while but I‘ve just not had the courage to make the move. But having had so many admissions recently the gastro ward at QMC has become like a second home of late and I have every faith that the team there will look after me now that I’m officially theirs. 

 Whilst this feels a bit scary I also feel like I’ve taken back some control and that I’m actively working towards getting better instead of being passive in the process and hoping that one of the hospitals would take the lead. The nurses on the ward in Nottingham are amazing and I know that no matter how ill I get they will always look after me but it will take time to develop the trust in the consultants. One of my big fears is that if I end up needing surgery will the surgeons in Nottingham be the best people to carry it out? They won’t have the volume of cases that the surgeons at St Marks do and so may not have the same experience and surgical outcomes. But I‘m trying not to let ‘what if’s’ make decisions for me and I will cross that bridge when I get to it. I have met the colorectal surgeon during one of my recent NHS ‘mini breaks‘ and he has said because of my complicated history he wouldn’t want to operate on me unless it was absolutely necessary so at least I know he’s not wanting to rush into anything. 

I don’t know what the future will hold but already I have an endoscopy and an outpatient appointment planned over the coming weeks so I’m guaranteed two trips out of the house at least!

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