Surgery cancelled whilst in the waiting room.

[Skinnyplaits]

Has this happened to anyone else? I was up at 5am this morning to get there. Childcare arranged and DH and family prepped. Meals sorted, club lifts arranged, work arranged and everything. I was sitting in the surgery admissions area at 7:15 and I got a call saying my surgery was cancelled. The surgeon has pulled his back. I have waited so long and I'm devastated.

Its taken me until now to get home and I'm back at my desk working with a very grumpy employer.

I too have had the experience of waiting around all day, starving, only to have my operation cancelled. In my case it was because they forgot to arrange my bloods in advance, took them when I arrived at 7:30am, but didn't get the results back in time to go ahead that day.

Very frustrating, such a waste of everyone's time, and so easily avoidable.

It's not ridiculous at all if you think about it.

About 70-80 thousand operations are cancelled each year. To give everyone a £100 voucher would cost £8M per year.

The NHS costs over £513 million per day. A £4M payout per year is less than 40 minutes of daily NHS budget or roughly 0.005% of the annual budget.

Take home pay for a senior NHS manager/CEO is over £400/day. Taking the cancellation fee from their wages would focus minds, I think.

It's not ridiculous at all if you actually understand how much the NHS costs.

That is absolutely ridiculous! Whilst I understand it is incredibly frustrating not one member of the surgical team will take cancelling a patient lightly.

Common Scenario’s for cancelling

• patient not fit for surgery
• no beds in the hospital due to either a&e backlogs waiting beds or unable to discharge safely into the community
• complications with surgery on a patient currently in theatre which means the next patient can’t safely be operated
• emergency theatre taking priority eg: car crash, stabbings, major trauma etc which takes the surgeon from their elective list
• staffing

Fortunately the vast majority of patients who have their surgery cancelled are relatively ‘fit and well’ and whilst it’s inconvenient is unlikely to be massively detrimental to wait a few extra days/ weeks as a previous cancellation is then prioritised as there is then a risk of financial plenalty if they breach the target waiting list time.

I spent 10 hours in a gown ready for surgery and eventually told at 7pm it wasn’t happening and needed to go home - things happen

Happened to me twice. Both times somebody more urgent got my place, so I could hardly complain. Shit happens.

So, simply because, in the NHS budget terms the amount is comparatively small it should be done?

No, sorry. The idea is totally ridiculous.

Can top that. Gown on, seen by anaesthetics and iv access in waiting to be wheeled around. No surgeon, they are on Holiday. Pre booked and no one thought to cancel her surgery list!

I was due to have a procedure I was very nervous about. The hospital was in a different town so my friend drove me there as I wouldn’t be able to drive after.
It was cancelled as I was sitting in the waiting area because my notes - the physical file - hadn’t been sent over from the hospital that is in my home town where it would have been far more convenient to have had the procedure in the first place. I was so annoyed.

It’s awful but usually only happens for good reason. Surely you want to be operated on by a fit surgeon?

This just didn’t happen. These sort of things are planned two months in advance and go through several layers of due diligence

Hi OP. I too have a cleft so understand the sadness around this.

i once got admitted at 7am in a hospital out of area for bone graft surgery. At 5:30pm a dr came round and told me it wouldn’t be going ahead. I think I cried the whole way home. My orthodontist was awaiting this surgery for me to continue treatment. It was a long time before it was rescheduled.

With there being so few cleft surgeons it’s really frustrating for us. I’m waiting a date for another surgery and I’m so scared it will be cancelled as it’s a 3 hour drive away.

i hope you get redated soon.

Oh lord. I don't think I can wait another few years. Its agonising. My nose runs constantly on one side due to the collapse.

I hope you get your date soon and it all goes well. ❤️ x

At this point, I'd happily have a toddler with craft scissors have a go.

It happened to me, about 30 mins before I was due to go in, they had a emergency with the person before me. Had to rebook and go back again.

How annoying! I was just thinking about this as I'm having nose surgery soon. It's already been postponed due to me having a cold.

I was just thinking surgeons must get bad backs from standing hunched over people for 4 hours at a time!

On my letter it does say it could get cancelled last minute.

When this happens they surely must ensure you don't wait long for a new appointment. I hope so, and wish you a speedy recovery x

My DM had it for open heart surgery. She was a nervous wreck waiting for the surgery (as was !!) and it had to be postponed due to an emergency. Had to go through the nerves agin the following week, when the surgery was able to be done

Yes. I was due hip surgery but the equipment pack they needed was not wrapped properly and so it wasn't sterile. I waited in day surgery ward while they rushed another kit from the company that sterilised them and that wasn't sterile either so they had to cancel. I was self employed and had cancelled work ( and therefore my income).

They did manage to fit me in a few days later but I was very upset at the time.

Nobody is suggesting it isn’t inconvenient, but where the surgeon is ill or injured, as in this case, what do you expect them to do? It’s not like there are spare surgeons hanging around just in case.

Our friend even went as far as being put out under his anaesthetic. He woke and thought how fantastic he felt considering it was major back surgery only to discover a major incident had occured when he was under and the surgery had to be postponed.

I was sent home to Wales from The Royal London five times. I'd spent the night up there and was ready to go on all occasions.

You seriously think that senior NHS staff should have some of their pay deducted to give compensation for cancelled operations, when it's clear from the stories here that cancellations are almost always because of emergencies taking priority, prior surgeries overrunning etc?

Are you on glue? The cancellations are not their fault!

Elective surgery means that it's planned, rather than emergency. It doesn't mean that it's not needed. Hope it's rescheduled soon, and yanbu to be upset

I had a few days warning, but ironic… I was due cancer surgery, and the surgeon told me when he had pencilled me in. He then contacted me, very apologetically, to say it had been put back by a week as the managers were making everyone except the oncall surgeon go on an away day about balancing education/training needs and service provision. That meant I was no longer on sick leave that day, so had to go to the same training day, as I work in the same division of the local NHS trust. The facilitators asked for an example of conflicting training/service needs, and I put my hand up and said “Well, I was meant to be having cancer surgery today, but my surgeon was told he had to come to this session instead. Does that count?”

Fourth time lucky for my hip surgery!
It happens. All good.

Yeah had it happen multiple times its horrible