I hesitate to have a go at the NHS as my sister in law is a nurse and works incredibly hard, but something is very wrong.

My experience over the past couple of months seems fairly typical. I've had an ear infection/wax problem since the start of November which is still not resolved. After a couple of trips to the doctor I was passed onto the nurse for syringing. The first appointment was cancelled but they didn't inform me. After three attempts at syringing it was still no better and I was in incredible pain and virtually deaf, but couldn't get into the doctors even as an emergency, so ended up in hospital. I was supposedly referred to the Ear Nose and Throat unit about 3 weeks ago but haven't even had a referral letter yet. Completely fed up and in some pain, I decided to go private. It turns out I had been given poor advice by the doctors/hospital, and now I've seen some decent equipment at the private clinic, I can see that the equipment the nurse was using was completely inadequate.

Luckily I'm in a position to be able to afford the private treatment (2 x £65, plus train journeys, and a third appointment next week), but if I wasn't able to afford it, I'd still be sitting here in a lot of pain, waiting for something to be done. I understand specific examples like this have varying circumstances, but the whole saga has been a shambles.