to think a referral letter shouldn't take this long?

[cheeseandchocolate]

Am happy for people to say IABU, just interested to hear peoples opinions.

I've had concerns about my DS's speech for a long time (got a SALT apt lined up). After an original mess up with referrals we were finally seen by an audiologist at the end of dec, a good six months after it should have happened. Surprise surprise he has glue ear with "mild to moderate hearing loss". Audiologist agreed that a ref to ENT should be done now rather than after the usual 3 month re-test. He wrote a letter that I handed to my GP's receptionist that day.

We got a phone call yesterday from the GP asking which hospital we'd like them to refer him to, so, just over a month after the original request. I'm sure ENT will have a waiting list too so this is really dragging out.

Now obviously he's my child so I don't want him waiting unecessarily. But I still think nearly 5 weeks for a quick referral letter?

I'm an AHP in my day job and am forced to get GP's to do referrals to various services all the time as they will accept them from noone else and it's soooooooo frustrating 9 times out of 10. I often can't do my job effectively as the referral doesn't get done for ages and my work is put on hold. (and if they are as sensible as me they will have templates for referral letters so they just have to add in the patient related details, these things don;t take too long. Or, they actually just need to include the original request from, say, me, or the audiologist, and say "please refer to x letter")

So, am I BU for thinking 5 weeks is too long?

It does sound like a long time. Maybe you GP was very busy with higher priority cases? It stills seems like a long wait to me.

Ok so that's one person who agrees. I absolutely know that there are people with bigger needs than my DS, but I do think that a GP should be able to priorise and be able to deal with those that are of "lower priority" more quickly than they did. But maybe not and I should just accept that we are going to be further down the list than I'd like us to be...

And has anyone got experience of how long an ENT apt takes to get???

definitely too long a wait. i can't imagine you should have to wait more than a few days for a referral letter to go out.

Oooh another one on my side, thanks! It's not asking for the moon, is it?

probably another 3 months wait after the referral letter gets sent out .

Can you afford to see an ENT consultant privately for an initial consultation (around £200). Thats what we did with - in fact our GP suggested it and wrote a very nice letter to the Consultant . We were seen within a week then he put us on his NHS list for grommets , been on NHS ever since . We did it that way as our DS was summer born baby and was due to start school later that year age 4 and 4 weeks , so we wanted it sorted ASAP.

That's poor, and I'd ask why it has taken so long. Ask if they can fax the referral and speed it through somehowxonsidering urgency.

I think I will (unless I now get a swathe of "YABU"s!). DH took the call yesterday about the hospital. If it'd been me, I would have asked them there and then why it'd taken so long. They are closed this afternoon but I may call to speak to the practice manager tomorrow.

avantia I think I'll try and find out exactly how long the waiting lists are here, and also we have a SALT apt in a few weeks. If they think he should be seen sooner rather than later, then I'll have a serious chat with DH about a private initial ax. I don't want to start down that route if we can avoid it, but I'm obviously a novice about these things so will see what the professionals say. My DS is quite a bit younger than yours too though that is on our side at least.

Good luck with it all .

And I will ask them to fax it. Again standard practice in my job as then it gets there immediately, and you have a reciept (and a hard copy can always be sent too if needed). But going on previous experience the GP surgery may not be quite as logical as me!

Thanks! And I hope your DS is ok too

Hope you get your referral soon. Have you tried the sitting in reception saying you'll hand deliver it if needed?

Our GP did a referral for DD2 to see the Orthotics dept (basically plastic things that help your feet/ankles to stay stable/walk) as we were struggling to find shoes to fit her due to her arthritis and she was wearing her sister's old slippers that were 2 sizes too big as they were the only comfortable shoes for her. This was in July BTW.

Last week we got an appt through. Not only is she now in remission from the arthritis, had/has Hyper Mobility Syndrome, she has now been discharged from Physio and the children's specialist Podiatry dept. Now they send the appt through!!

Also, on the ENT front, I have been saying that DD1 has had hearing problems since her 2y check. She got her first hearing check in the last term of YR (which she failed on a couple of points). She has hearing loss in one ear but because it's not been followed up by the numerous HV, NN, GPs SALTs that I have pestered about it, she has had hearing loss for nearly 4 years with no help.

My Gp did a referral letter for DS for ENT (he also had glue ear)

It was done within 48hrs.

Truth that's so bad for your DD. Orthotics would be exactly the sort of thing that I would refer for, and not getting seen for a long time has a massive impact on what the rest of us can do. It's so bad that we need to pester like we do. The HV who should have done the original audiology ref but didn;t, was the same one who also ^didn't do an opthamology ref when DS was 6mo.

I'm going to call the surgery tomorrow to make sure the ref has been sent, and write a letter of complaint. I'm fed up trying to have faith that things that are supposed to be happening really are happening, clearly a few fireworks under bums are required!

Our GP tends to e-mail / fax stuff.
Better record of it being sent/received
Costs less.
FAR quicker.

Mind, I'm surprised the audiologist couldn't make a referral to ENT - seems daft to have to take a letter to the GP.

I seems very daft but that's the protocol in a lot of areas. A health professional who knows a lot more about a specific clinical issue than a GP would know about, has to ask a GP to do a referral basically just repeating all information that the HP has given to them. Obviously GP's need to be in the loop but that it always has to come from them is ridiculous!

Doesn't necessarily need a referral letter-GP could just book you an appt on Choose & book system, referral can follow...
Good luck.

Sounds too long to me. It's non urgent, but even then I would have expected 2 weeks max and probably within a week, but then in our area everything goes to the local DGH. I suspect if I lived in an area with a huge array of hospitals I'd have either made an appointment to discuss it or handed in a letter with the note saying which hospital I wanted to go to. We're Scotland though with no choose and book, largely because there is minimal real choice.

Also in our area audiology comes under the ENT umbrella so they don't have to go through the GP to pass from ENT to audiology and vv.

Choose and book didn't enter my head at all. Funny that it's never come up at work either. I just assumed we'd be referred to the closest hospital. I possibly only would have thought about this if there was a real reason for me to want DS to go to a different hospital, but I didn't (have no knowledge of ENT anywhere so all the same to me at the mo).

Grrrr, I'm getting more and more annoyed about this! Should I write a letter or call the speak to the practice manager?

second that is awful, that is a massive training issue and I hope your DS is ok now. There's just no excuse for it, is there?

There has been a discussion recently on a doctors forum about how long it takes a doctor to write/dictate referral letters. Most do it within 48 hours but all within a week. 5 weeks seems poor, it is worth seeking an explanation. However it's worth bearing in mind that if everything needs to be referred by the gp in your area, the GPs will be swamped with it so there's more likely to be a backlog. I bet the GPs aren't a fan of the system either as it just creates unnecessary work.

Yanbu, it shouldn't take so long to do a referral letter