In-patient care/treatment now all but ceased?

I had my first experience of psoriasis in 1980, all over my body. I was prescribed treatments, but nobody from NHS was asked or offerred to apply them. Fortunately I had a couple of friends who applied the ointments to my back. To be honest, I do not think "applying ointment in difficult to reach places" is available anywhere as a part of NHS services. 2 years ago I came out in Guttate psoriasis and just soaked my back in tepid baths of salt and oilatum, bath oil.

Hello Tralala, sorry to hear of your bad experiences. From your post it is not clear when you had the flare and the treatment. Can I ask what your treatment consisted of. My experience of in patient treatment is different to yours although this was back in the 80s when treatment wasn't as advanced as now. I wrote a post recently regarding my experience of hospital in patient treatment in the general section titled reminiscing old treatments. I cannot comment on your health authority and dermatology departments. I have been satisfied with mine considering the budget constraints and cuts. As far as docs and nurses helping and administering the creams, that is down to me and when I had fiddly spots to reach my Wife would apply the ointment for me. Even when I was an in patient I had to apply the cream myself or have another patient do it for me. I hope you are on the road to recovery from the flare up.

I was treated in ST Johns dermatology in the 1970's as I had so many serious and frequent flareups it was ruining my life. In that hospital they have special dermatology nurses who apply the ointments giving the patient and family a rest. Going there was the best thing I ever did. They are a leading place for new treatments and discovered the therapeutic benefits of the sun . They developed carefully controlled sun treatment. In the following years I would go to the Canary Islands in the winter just as my skin was getting really bad and sunbathed slowly in 72-75 degrees . Severe psoriasis needs to be treated professionally Being off work for nearly 3 months without help nearly led me to a breakdown

I sympathise but is your critisicm of the health system now and are you still suffering as bad as you did in the 70s. What I would say from my previous discussions with my consultants is that with modern medication/drugs in patient treatment is not as common as it was decades ago. I also had 3 separate months off work in the space of 18 months all for in patient treatment. The times of applying dithranol have now been overtaken by oral or injected meds in severe cases and being able to lead a better quality of life with regular blood checks of course. If you don't mind me asking what would you like your doctors to do for you now?

So what was your inpatient treatment like ? I would like to be treated by professionals like I was before My experience described above was due to bad staff not resources. If 3 staff can hang around just staring then they have time to help. The drugs used in psoriasis now can contradict to other drugs so in some cases eg cancer they are of no use

Tralala, without repeating my recent post in the general chat section, I was a teenager when I was admitted to the Royal Liverpool hospital. I suppose I was happy with the treatment I received from the NHS, the only negative was that months after being discharged I found myself back in a further two times. Once the nurses had shown me how to apply the creams, I could do most myself. The docs would make their regular rounds and look at progress then it was the same regime for about a month. My last in patient treatment was in 85. Since then I have had regular checkups with NHS doctors, gone through the usual list of treatments until something works. I had a great relationship with my last consultant of ten years who gave me the time and appeared genuinely interested in my progress over that time. Apart from P I have been fit and healthy so done a lot of things myself. I suppose for people with other ailments, maybe older, doing things oneself may not be possible. Plus I agree that the current range of meds aren't for everyone unfortunately.