Navigating UK healthcare when you’re already at your limit is brutal. Join our community for the unfiltered truth about the healthcare experience…along with reflections to help you find calm in the chaos.
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Let’s be real here
Navigating the chaotic NHS creates more distress for people living with chronic pain, and it’s no longer ignorable.
As a carer I understand how overwhelming and confusing it is for people living with chronic pain to get to their hospital appointments.
I work with healthcare leaders and teams to make access to healthcare easier for patients, carers, and visitors.
My mission is simple: remove unnecessary burden, stress and confusion. Clear the hurdles. Help people reach their appointments smoothly, safely, and on time.
I base my work on lived experiences designed to support real people. I want to spark more honest conversations.
CHRONIC PAIN AND DISABILITY CAN LOOK LIKE ANYTHING, HAPPEN TO ANYONE, AND EVERYONE DESERVES TO FEEL SUPPORTED.
WHO AM I?
“The Unignorable Advocate”
HI! I’M ANGELA, AN EXECUTIVE COACH AND ACCESS AND ADVOCACY CONSULTANT FROM THE UK.
For 35 years, I worked in and alongside the NHS in senior clinical, operational, leadership, and consultancy roles. I helped design and deliver services. I sat in board meetings where decisions were made. I coached the people carrying the weight of those decisions. I trained doctors and nurses to coach others so that coaching became part of everyday conversations. My contributions have been recognised in the clinical leadership press.
I understand how hospitals actually work.
I understand how compromises get made.
And I understand the pressure nurses and doctors carry every day.
I’m not naive about the NHS. I know its brilliance. I also know its constraints.
What I didn’t understand, not fully, was what it feels like to navigate the system when you’re already at your limit.
That understanding arrived on July 22nd, 2023.
My lovely partner, Mark, woke up with excruciating, debilitating, backpain. He’s been labelled as one of those “complex cases” by medical professionals.
From that moment on, I began to see healthcare from another side. From the appointment letter, to the parking, to the signage. It was all so unclear. Or unfit for purpose.
Why are the car parks miles away from the designated entrance?
Why are there so few disabled bays and drop off points?
Why does no-one think to give us the correct information before we leave the house?
And where are the reception staff? Where is the CARE?
Living with chronic pain changes how you experience everything. It strips away tolerance for friction. It narrows attention to what is missing, unclear, inaccessible, and unnecessarily hard long before you reach a clinician.
By the time care begins, people are already exhausted.
Now with my experiences at the intersection of these two perspectives, I want to help make sure no-one else feels like they’re invisible, confused, or struggling on their own.
Not to blame.
But to make the invisible visible.
To ask better questions about access. To help healthcare organisations see where anxiety is generated long before treatment begins. And to explore how access to care might be designed better for people who are already at their cognitive limit.
For people living with chronic pain, it can be the difference between coping and collapse.
I’m committed to challenging healthcare leaders, sparking complex conversations and pushing for action. Welcome to my website.
THE DIARY OF A CARER IS AN UNFILTERED JOURNEY INTO THE BRUTAL REALITY OF NAVIGATING UK HEALTHCARE SERVICES ALONG WITH REFLECTIONS AND STORIES TO HELP US FIND CALM IN THE CHAOS.
Angela has embarked upon a curiosity driven journey to discover untold truths, unlearned lessons, and important insights that she hopes will make her own, her partners’, and her readers’ experience of navigating healthcare easier.
If this is happening in your organisation, it isn’t deliberate and can be fixed. Not by adding more rules or blaming the staff, but through seeing things through the eyes of your patients and their carers.
We’ll do the legwork most teams don’t have the time to do. Walking routes. Reading letters as a first timer. Paying attention to where people get lost, give up, or feel foolish asking for help.
This starts with a conversation. No pitch. No rant. No blame. Just a clear look at what’s getting in the way, and whether it’s something we should work on together.
Angela Watson 