Long waits for treatment are commonplace

BBC News Online's Ray Dunne talked to one man who struggled to receive medical care.

Mark is a 30-year-old gay man living in London. Five months ago, he had anonymous sex with another man.

Within days he had developed a sore and suspected he may have contracted syphilis.

He had reason to be concerned. Official figures show record numbers of people being diagnosed with the disease. Infection rates have jumped by 500% over the past six years.

I was told I would have to wait 12 days for an appointment

Mark contacted his local sexual health clinic to request an urgent appointment. He was dismayed by their reaction.

"I called up a clinic in central London and tried to get an appointment. I was told I would have to wait 12 days for an appointment."

He put down the phone and tried again. This time, he asked to speak to the clinic's nurse.

Long wait

He explained his symptoms and once again asked to be seen quickly. The response was the same - he was told he would have to wait.

Another call, this time to the clinic manager garnered the same response.

Irate, Mark decided he wasn't going to take no for an answer.

If you know the right things to say you can be seen

"I spoke to the manager and said that I was going to turn up at the clinic later that day and wanted to be seen.

"I said I would stay until I had been seen. In the end, I waited for three hours but I was seen."

Mark says he was determined to get his symptoms checked-out so that he wouldn't pass the disease onto anyone else.

"I thought I was being responsible by trying to get treated quickly. In the end, I could have decided to forget about it and run the risk of infecting someone else," he says.

"It was very frustrating. I knew that doctors would have to take a blood test and that I would have to wait one week for the results. I was not prepared to add another 12 days to that wait."

Test results

Mark's test results came back one week later. It was an agonising wait.

"I was very concerned. I was most concerned about passing it onto someone else. Thankfully, it turned out not to be syphilis."

Mark believes his wait and the psychological torment of not knowing whether he had the disease or not would have been much worse if he hadn't insisted on being seen.

"I demanded to be seen. I have friends who work in these clinics and they had told me how to get around the system.

"They told me that if I ever suspected I had symptoms to tell the clinic receptionist. They said if that doesn't work to demand to talk to the nurse and if that doesn't work to demand to talk to the clinic manager.

"If that doesn't work they told me to just show up at the clinic, be bloody-minded and refuse to leave until I had been seen.