When Pippa Dungey went to her GP suffering from numbness in both her legs last year, she was told she faced a waiting list of 10 months for specialist neurology services.
Two months later, the 25-year-old trainee solicitor, from southeast London, ended up in A&E unable to walk.
Ms Dungey first went to see her doctor in September last year and was referred to a neurologist, but warned to expect a long wait for an appointment.
As she waited, her symptoms worsened, and eventually they became so bad she was unable to lift her right leg and forced to drag it around.
She sought help from A&E and her GP, but was turned away and told she would have to wait for her neurology appointment.
But eventually she was forced to go back to A&E, where she was admitted for a week and unable to walk and was later diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).
There are around 150,000 people living with MS, a condition that effects the nerves in the brain and spinal chord. It can effect people in different ways, including impacting vision, balance, memory, and emotions.
Ms Dungey said: “By November I was really concerned. I couldn’t lift my right leg and was just dragging it around, which was really scary. I felt like I’d been hung out to dry and didn’t know who to turn to. Everyone was telling me that they couldn’t do anything. I even tried to go privately, I was exhausting every avenue and didn’t know what to do.
“I then had an emergency appointment with my GP, and they referred me to A&E again. Thankfully, this time the doctor admitted me and I was eventually diagnosed [with MS] but I spent a week in hospital unable to walk because I couldn’t get a neurology appointment.”
Ms Dungey was one of the hundreds of thousands of people waiting for NHS neurology services - 6,175 of whom have been waiting for more than a year.
Charity the MS Society has warned people living with MS were waiting an average of five months for their first neurology appointment in 2023-24, a 65 per cent increase on the average wait time in 2019-20.
The charity have warned MS patients left waiting are at risk of “irreversible disability” and have said the government has so far overlooked neurological conditions in its 10 year plan.
Since being discharged from A&E, Ms Dungey said she is still working to regain her ability to walk.
According, to a survey by the MS Society of 600 patients in England, one in seven had an unplanned hospital admission which could have been prevented. It warned almost one in five are having to travel more than 20 miles for hospital appointments.
Peter Lloyd, policy manager at the MS Society, said: “This report paints a sobering picture of hospital care for people with MS – the ramifications of which can be huge.
“Neurologists and MS nurses are facing immense strain, and there are simply not enough of them to keep up with rising demand. This means people are waiting longer and longer for essential support like an initial diagnosis or planned care – triggering preventable emergencies further down the line.
“The NHS 10 Year Plan aims to tackle some of these issues, which is encouraging. But it’s worrying there’s still no specific plan for the one in six people in England living with a neurological condition. That’s why we’re calling for a dedicated national plan for neurology, so people with MS and other conditions can get the care they need without delay.”
The Department for Health and Social Care was approached for comment.
