5aday. Check PMs

If you are thinking of going overseas for surgery, be cautious. You may get an excellent surgeon in a super hospital but there us no guarantee of competence or honesty and I've seen some horrific disasters in people who've gone to Eastern Europe for private surgery and have had things done that just wouldn't happen in the UK.

NRU74, thanks for the "Support Worker" explanation. As you say, an apparent waste of whatever resource "Support Workers" constitute. A reflection on the quality of NHS management, an unfair non-typical one off experience, or the tip of a monstrous iceberg?

OTOH, Mrs C has recently attended a couple of out-patient appointments in a nearby town for consultations concerning an eye condition. Very little sitting around, a series of tests conducted by nurses, and finally a reassuring talk with consultant. Can't think of anything to complain of other than about the damn hospital parking ticket issuing machine which would have challenged Turing, I think.

OP, nothing helpful to advise I'm afraid, as mercifully I've been spared this injury to date, other than to add my very good wishes to those of others.

FLYINGORTHOPOD,
I have an appt at the local NHS High Wycombe this afternoon and another possibility is the Reading SHoulder Unit and the NHS pay for it. More revealed this afternoon.Thank you for every bit of advice.
Dave/5aday

5aday. Good luck with it. I've generally been happy with the NHS, apart from the mental health side, but that's another story. Part of my reason for going private was the delay. I actually had the op more or less on the same day that the NHS offered for my first appointment with a surgeon. I was concerned with the muscles atrophying from lack of use. It was three and a half months from the injury to the operation, and four months before the stitches were out and I could start rehabilitation. On the NHS that would probably have been at least a month more, possibly two.

I dislocated my right shoulder in 2000. This did for the rotator cuff..and ripped the axilliary nerve, too. I fought furiously to get surgery to repair the rotator cuff, and was finally successful, Coming to in the recovery room I heard the surgeon say "In the end we didn't proceed with the repair...." which really cheered me up. I was later told "It isn't a vastly successful operation, anyway"... The nerve took months to regrow. Physiotherapy was of limited effectiveness...couldn't get the arm above shoulder height. So I got a pulley and some rope and weights...and that counterbalanced the weight of the arm, so that I could raise it above my head. Bit by bit I reduced the counterbalance until I could raise the arm unaided. I still have problems trying to do such things as reaching up with a hammer and bashing things.... but the arm is quite usable now.
Then in 2014 I dislocated the left shoulder....(!)

I am having mine done (via Bupa TG) with Dr Simon Gregg Smith at the Circle Bath Hospital --he is one of the best in the shoulder business (I am reliably informed). Good Luck!

Recovery is rarely a speedy process....
 

.....In 1973 I fell at my childrens' first school sports breaking my collar bone and dislocating my right shoulder. My GP (a Dr Finlay type) got my wife to put her weight on my left shoulder and there were some weird clicks and clunks as he heaved the joint around while my wife fainted and I followed suit.
It more or less worked but with regular clicks.
Twenty years later in Langkawi I was getting the full monty all body massage from this wiry little bloke who could have undone Scammel wheelnuts with his finger and thumb. He patted my right shoulder and wanted to know what had happened (no common language lots of gestures). "Ah no go back right" and looked at me questioningly. "OK go for it" says I. More delicate heaving and twisting and a soggy clunk and it went into place. Where it stayed for another twenty years without any clicking.
Add on another twenty years and I'm in Chiang Mai now getting the full monty Wat Po massage (an hour and a half of serious work). This time it's a roly poly Thai Aunty ( she could do Scammel wheelnuts too) and again she focusses on my right shoulder and manipulates it back into place again. Where it resides silently to this day.

I'm sure there is something to be said for a more "hands on" approach to skeleto-muscular complaints than we see in Western type medicine.

The Ancient Mariner

Well, its going to be an artificial joint - similar to one on my r hip but the other way around
ie the ball is in the shoulder and the socket on the upper arm (Humerous?). My current shoulder joint is cat 5 (beyond repair).Sooner or later I will have enough steel internally I won't need a weight belt for diving.

Sounds very serious. If you don't mind my asking, what did you do? Mine was running in a group, at night, no head torch. Just street lights and car headlights. I caught my foot in one of the metal guy wires that hold up telegraph poles. No give in those of course. so crash. Stupid really; I shouldn't have been there. You know what they say self-inflicted injury = no sympathy.

All a bit stupid really as I was assisting the gardener. I passed a folded garden chair (under a tarpaulin ) to collect some logs. The chair somehow unfolded and on the way back I went headlong over it and landed with the logs on my chest breaking two ribs, the sternum, and both rotator cuffs - the left being extreme. With this artificial shoulder, I should be allowed to ride the Ducati again later in the year and maybe go diving again though I may need a squeak of air in the fenzy.

Ouch, ouch, ouch. Makes mine sound very minor. Again, good luck.

Good luck. It's a great operation if your shoulder isn't likely to do well with a cuff repair. Hope it goes well

I'll let you know. I don't think I will have sufficient strength to lift the bike if it ends up on it's side. Similarly the shoulder will need to heal quite a bit to wear an ABLJ (fenzy type life jacket harness) but those are my ambitions for 2018. The lady Doctor seems to think it may happen quite soon which I hope because I am giving my youngest daughter away on August 12th.Its either that or delay until afterwards. Suggested healing time? We did not discuss that so any guesses gratefully received. The R hip was quite quick. That surgeon suspected that the hip was a motor bike accident from a few years previous.How do they know these things ?

Takes a fair while to get back to reasonable levels of activity. Some good info here along with one rehab regime, though others are available:

https://www.shoulderdoc.co.uk/article/631