Who and Why withdrew my referal to RA clinic.

[mattcass]

At my 1st visit to the rheumy it transpired that my referal in january was withdrawn for some reason and did not appear on the rhuemy consultant desk till the 12th march that is when he sent for me,when i mentioned that I had been waiting since Jan to see him he was really angry in fact showed me and Fran the rubber stamp that he uses on any admin material that is passed to him, Again i made a remark was this me being punished by nhs for going for a private consultation. I have contacted the private consultant and asked to confirm the date he passed me back the nhs he told me verbally that he would do it that was on the 28th Jan,There are some serious question to be answered will keep you all updated.Mattcass

[allanah]

That sound very slow. Maybe in stayed in pending till the rheumy consultant actually saw it.? Hope u get some clarity soon xx

[Hidden]

Sorry about all this stuff Mattcass - did you actually manage to have a consultation about your health in amongst all this rubber stamping and NHS incompetence? Tilda

[mattcass in reply to Hidden]

Hi Tilda T will send a blog later with an update on this,Mattcass

[TweeterCal]

Similar story with me Mattcass. My referral was made by my NHS doc to NHS rheumy and marked "Urgent!" It was lost and if I hadnt phoned after 2 months of waiting I would have been none the wiser. No explanation given #maladministration. Good luck getting answers, I was too fatigued to follow up. I will however expand on this on my next blog post. All the best, Cal

[mattcass in reply to TweeterCal]

Hi Cal thanks for your reply, the rheumies secretary confirmed to my GP that i was on the referal list but because of the seriousness of my condition my chest doc and GP could not understand why i was not being seen,now we know why it was not even in the (In Tray) i took a turn for the worse 4 weeks ago lost 70% of my lung space and the same with mobility could this have been avoided at this stage we will never know.Mattcass

[mistymeana]

Hi All, thought I'd bung in a bit of info from the inside - I cover for the medical secretary and do all the referrals when she's away and deal with urgent cancer referrals on her days off at work so seen some of the pitfalls as well as being on the receiving end with my smorgasbord of referrals Don't know about in Scotland Cal but in England the majority of referrals go electronically. As with all things tech, things occasionally seem to get lost in the ether and don't arrive. Also, the choose and book team at the hospitals deal with thousands of referrals and have to farm them out to the relevant departments, again mostly electronically, so another layer for things to vanish. Not excusing the problems but trying to add a little perspective - not the system against you, just sh***y luck! There are government guidelines as to how long you should wait but they're not always adhered to. A pain to wait longer than you should but from experience some of the departments that worry most about hitting targets do so at the expense of patient care. As a rule of thumb, waiting times here are generally: 2 weeks for suspected cancer referral (if you ever have one of these please don't panic as vast majority come back with something else entirely being the problem; approx a month for urgent referrals; 12 weeks for routine referrals but heavily subscribed areas like physio, podiatry and oral health can be closer to 16 weeks. These wait times are from the time they reach hospital so add on up to a week for them to be typed up and sent over. If you're waiting for a first appointment and concerned it's taking too long always speak to the reception team at your GPs. They should be happy to call for you to confirm they've received the referral and more often than not can wheedle an expected wait time for you.

Obviously most of this doesn't apply in your case Mattcass as sounds like the referral went from one consultant to another. In an ideal world they should all act like the intelligent adults they are but sadly some with the biggest egos revert to sulky schoolboys if they feel they're being questioned or bypassed (been there and currently in process of buying the teeshirt!). Hope you get the answers you're looking for and, more importantly, the standard of care you deserve. Chin up x

[mattcass in reply to mistymeana]

Hi Mistymeana thank you Im not looking to blame any admin staff they do a great job ive been in my chest clinic for 7 years,The rheumy is more angry than me when we get the date from the private consultant we can take it from there, he did say when a referal is withdrawn for a reason it is normally recorded mine was also confirmed by the rheumies secretary telling my GP i was refered to this clinic.mattcass