The NHS's Bureaucracy Is Torturing Patients Like Me

White coat syndrome? I’ve got a chronic case

- JAMES MOORE

Let me explain this for those of you scratching your heads and wondering what I’m talking about. White coat syndrome is what happens when you have your blood pressure taken at the local hospital or GP’s surgery.

Hypertension can look a lot more hyper when the patient is feeling tense, which is quite common in these settings.

Somewhat concerned at the numbers on my last hospital visit, I decided to get another blood pressure reading at Tesco. While a supermarket pharmacy isn’t exactly my idea of a new age yoga parlour, it is a much more relaxed setting than anywhere you’ll find people wearing white coats or scrubs.

Needless to say, the readings I got at Tesco were much lower. Every little helps. But I wonder what they’d have looked like if I had another test after I attempted to communicate them to my GP. Trying to talk with one’s GP can these days resemble an assault course set to canned music even if you’re lucky enough to have a good doctor (and I wouldn’t surrender mine for a lottery win).

Long telephone waits, disembodied voices telling you you’re twelfth in the queue for two hours straight, getting hung up on when you finally do get through and then starting back at twelfth. I’m not exaggerating – not much, anyway.