I am hoping that my wife and I are unique in this, but we are both desperately disappointed with MacMillan services. The service is nothing like the lavish and presumably expensive adverts. So far in our experience, they are all self-marketed hype with no substance. Unfortunately they are the only Health Service support that we have been offered. My wife was diagnosed with liver cancer at the beginning of February, after the tumour was misdiagnosed as benign in June 2015. Consequentially the prognosis has been given as ‘weeks’. We have seen the McMillan nurse once in that time, apparently she is very busy, poor dear, as McMillan are short staffed, but if I need someone urgently I can call PEPS. Apparently stands for; ?Partnership in Excellence etc? wow, what arrogance! Still, must be good for McMillan caseload statistics.
My wife and I are certainly facing cancer alone. No-one has taken responsibility for my wife’s well-being or quality of life, and I have not yet met, or spoken to, anyone from McMillan who has any empathy with people facing terminal cancer. A couple of examples of the silliness of the service: A promise that MacMillan support could fast track a blue badge, resulted in a three week wait for a contact that offered an appointment to help with the form in a further three weeks. I’ve now completed it myself online, as recommended by the contact. Good for MacMillan statistics I suppose? The nurse insisted that the DS1500 report be sent to her from the GP and not me. She’s lost it!
The nurse can’t provide any information on what we should expect as death closes in, as “everyone is different”. So we face the unknown alone.
The adverts are certainly misleading, if not worse. I thought MacMillan was a charity, supporting Health Services. They certainly are not charitable, and in our case have replaced proper caring nursing support, with no option of alternative.
