A long waiting time

[wp69]

Three months now from my discharge where I was diagnosed with cirrhosis , and have been put under the umbrella of my health board , was diagnosed whilst working away , I had received a letter stating that I have been referred as an urgent referral , so today after no contact with them , I telephoned the appointments department to see if I was anywhere close to being seen , the answer was , that as an urgent ‼️ referral , it should only take 7 months , was bit taken aback with that , has any one here gone down the private route to speed things up , many thanks , Will

[Ewife]

We went private initially, and were referred to Leeds by this consultant after the bleed my husband had. Definately worked in our favour- our local hospital isn't great. We were lucky we had insurance which covered us though...could be quite costly if you haven't. Involves a lot of initial tests and scans.....including endoscopy.

[wp69 in reply to Ewife]

Ive had all them when hospitalised , thanks for the reply

[cammeag]

Have you been to see your GP? Are they aware of what happened when you were away as records are not always passed. GI departments tend to speed up only in emergencies. You could go private and if there is anything urgent or critical it will speed up referral, or if you think you understand what is going on with your health, you could use the intervening months before your appointment to live a life that gives you the best chance of being given a positive result. You mentioned before that you had cirrhosis…if you are still drinking then that will definitely not help when you finally get seen, but the great thing about our health is we normally get to decide what direction we can take it in. All the best.

[wp69 in reply to cammeag]

Spoke to the referral team and they said 7 months for urgent referrals , not drinking and eating healthily

[cammeag in reply to wp69]

Obviously it is your choice if you want to have that type of lifestyle. If you want to give an alternative lifestyle an opportunity, you may be surprised at the results…but as i said, it’s paramount that what we do is our own personal choice. If you want any help with change or maybe looking at a 12 step programme etc, feel free to PM me. Take care.

[CHanse in reply to cammeag]

cammeag, I read wp69’s reply as not drinking and eating healthily in the positive. As in I’m not drinking and I’m eating healthily but I can see how it can also read in the negative

[cammeag in reply to CHanse]

I just sent a PM off to WP apologising🤦‍♂️, thanks for pointing that out to me 👍

[wp69 in reply to CHanse]

Thanks , I can see now how it can be misinterpreted LOL.

[Bumpity]

Please be aware that if you go private, the private clinic may well ignore the results of any test you had done on the NHS. They may insist on everything starting from scratch which will be very expensive if you do not have a health care plan which covers your illness.

I was about to go private for a different health issue and spoke to my GP who advised that he will not support me in any way if I run out of money as, he is not there to pick up the pieces if I choose to jump the waiting list (Shorter version of his words).

At the end of the day, private clinics are there to make money as they have no NHS funding to pay for Doctors etc.,

[wp69 in reply to Bumpity]

I thought about this last night after writing the post , I needed an endoscope about 7 years ago , waiting list was horrendous , so I asked to go privately , so I was expecting to go to a private hospital , had consultation a few miles from my local hospital and asked where would the procedure take place , I was stunned when the answer was , oh at the local hospital , im an NHS consultant but Thursday afternoons I have my own private clinic in the hospital , so everything was done in the local hospital but just had to pay for it , it was very strange.

[Bumpity]

That's pretty disgusting, getting all of the money from private patients but getting using the much cheaper facilities of an NHS hospital. But, at least you had the endoscope done quickly. Take care.

[wp69 in reply to Bumpity]

Exactly my thoughts , when paying for something done privately , you expect to go to a private hospital , basically I jus jumped the queue , like I said , very strange.

[Roy1955 in reply to wp69]

Part of what you pay goes to the NHS hospital coffers.Usualy you get an invoice from the consultant and a seperate invoice for using the NHS room.

Then another one for any equipment used during the exam/treatment.

Almost all NHS hospitals allow consultants to use them for private patients and charge the consultant "rent"!

[wp69 in reply to Roy1955]

Your probably correct , but I can only recall one invoice at the time , thanks for shading light on the matter