That an urgent referral should be sent sooner then 2 weeks

[lmer]

My sons pead was asked to do an urgent referral for some testing by another department- I had to ring today about some unrelated stuff and asked about the wait times for the testing while I was on the phone. Aibu to think that an urgent referral should not take 2 weeks to be sent??

BCC is the 'best' skin cancer to get if you have to have one. They can simply remove it and stitch it up without any need for chemo etc. Good luck X

Grannytomine yes you do need to do something I know it is hard with everything else that's going on. From what you have said hopefully it is BCC but sounds like referred as others.

If you GP practice is kind then the secretary may be able to find out what has happened (they don't have to though) if you can find no booking numbers call PALs and they can do the legwork for you.

Please do take the effort sometimes people fall through the net. And good luck.

I had this with a suspected stroke and my doctor told me if I have private insurance I must phone them that day as I could be dead within the two week wait for an urgent scan. I went that day and got seen by my private healthcare providers. Im not a fan of the NHS for various reasons. In other countries you get much better care because you're insured and covered and I make sure I get the right cover for me. In the uk I have to pay NI for the NHS and on top of that very high private healthcare costs because this isn't standard here. Even then because private isn't normal I can't even get cover for everything which I would be able to in say the US.
Ps its not always a full two weeks wait they just tell you that sometimes.

Get a,private appointment? You'll be seen straight away
My DS (age 17) has awful acne last year. I know it doesn't sound like much but not only did it look awful but it was so cystic that it was also painful.

In November, he went to the GP and she straight away said that she was going to refer him to a dermatologist.

In December the referral arrived and the appointment was scheduled for this September, so a ten month wait.

Understandable because although awful to him, his acne is not urgent or life threatening or anything.

My parents decided to pay for him to get a private appointment with a dermatologist and he was seen in December and started on a course of Roaccutane. The cost of this initial appointment, some blood tests and his first month's medication was something like £300.

Once he had been taking the medicines for a few weeks, the consultant transferred his care across to the dermatology department at the hospital in time for the second month's pills.

So now 8 months down the line, he has almost finished his course of treatment and his skin is almost clear and there are still two months left until when he would have had his first appointment.

For £300, it was worth every penny.

Just curious OP... how did you vote?

The NHS is on its knees. If you don't have suspected cancer and are not a life threatening emergency then prepare to wait..... and be prepared to wait A LONG TIME!

Sorry for derailing the thread a bit, didn't mean to but thanks for the support and good wishes. I will call them tomorrow, promise.

I'm sorry, it's such a difficult time when your child is ill and the NHS is pushed to breaking point. When it's your child, you just want them to be seen.

How old is he? His age may be the barrier to getting a private test, not a total barrier but they may be more reticent.

For you and

where we are an urgent swallow assessment is a 2 week wait for in-patients only. Community patients wait far longer.

Referrals from our pediatrician now take 5 weeks from tape to typed letter - just not enough secretary time!

we have an appointment for our 12 month old urgent swallow assessment outpatient - the wait was closer to 12 weeks....

(thankfully older sibling same problem so I know how to manage, otherwise i'd be besides myself with worry!)

It's shit. I'm so sorry and it's really offensive when these threads descend into badgering the OP about how they voted. Not helpful at all.

No one in the NHS is happy with waiting times. I could, absolutely rant for a long time about how the govt is to blame; but at the end of the day this is a case of one family that is needing a service.

OP I can't give you answers as this isn't my field. I'm a researcher and work with the NHS on various projects looking at how to be more efficient.

What I can tell you is this:

When a GP suspects cancer the patient is placed on a 2WW if they are an adult and sent for an urgent (within 48h I think) appt with a paediatrician if a child.

However, 2WW referral rates are increasing in number and this has an added knock on effect to non cancer referrals - so the waits are longer.

No one in the NHS wants to get to a position where a patients condition deteriorates to an extent that they have an A&E admittance. That is neither good for the patient for for the system. Clinicians and managers are working their arses off all the time to try and relieve the pressure on the system, but there is a limit to what they can do under current circumstances.

So, if you could possibly afford to go private for this test then it is in your son's interest to do so. I'm sorry if that isn't a sufficient response.

He's only 10 months (still not sitting or anything tho). I don't think who I voted for really matters. Chased up again today after a hospital admission and it still isn't sent 🙄 so will be relooking into private options again on Monday

Will be relooking into private options again on Monday
If I were you, when I was looking into private options I would ask them about the arrangements for transferring care back to the NHS after the initial diagnosis.

I know that you shouldn't have to go private to get your DS 's treatment as soon as you would like but you will be so glad that you did it.

@PersianCatLady that's the current plan although at this point I wouldn't care if we did have to stay private- I just want it sorted (I've been saying for months something's wrong but it's taken this long for them to actually listen)

I wouldn't care if we did have to stay private
I would still ask, once my DS had been diagnosed by the consultant and started on treatment, there would have been no advantage in staying private.

The only difference would have been that we would have had to pay another £150 a month for his medicines and £200 every three months for his blood tests and review appointments.

Another good thing is that as the initial consultations with the consultant dermatologist are so in demand, somebody else can now have the appointment that he would have had in September.

At first I felt that it was a bit wrong to "jump the queue" for his treatment but actually this means that somebody will get their first appointment faster so I don't feel that way about it now.

I work for the NHS. A lot of referrals are quicker going from the GP. The reason for this is when a GP does a referral, it goes to a central booking and the targets set by the government need to be met but when it's consultant to consultant, it isn't always going through the same channels so the targets are not monitored or recorded hence can take longer.
If need be and u haven't heard, ring the secretary or get the GP to chase up

@niccyb chased up today as still not done and salt will be chasing up on Monday as well 🙂

@imer hope u get sorted soon x

There used to be 18 week non-emergency waiting lists. The government have quietly scrapped these - waiting times are set to rise.

@SteppingOnToes I'm aware we'd actually have to wait once the referrals done as well- but it's been over 3 weeks of waiting just to get onto the damn wait list 😅 and this is classed as "urgent" (to the point they even considered stopping oral feeding while he was in hospital)

Imer - the problem is that there is a difference between what the hospital classes as urgent and what we do. Urgent is life threatening - if it was then I'm sure he would have been seen already.

I wish they would rephrase referrals - priority would probably be a better term. Truly urgent referrals are seen - it can even be a same day GP referral in some conditions.

We finally have progress!! Alder hey STILL hadnt got the referral yesterday- after a quick chat to pals (regarding another issue but mentioned this situation in case they could help) the referral was magically written and emailed over!

That's not good that they hadn't even sent the referral yet! I'm glad you got PALS involved.

@SteppingOnToes I'm not surprised tbh- we've had issues with this consultant in the past- because it's an issue that can somewhat be treated without the testing (they'd just remove all oral feeding and place a tube) I guess it's an 'urgent' but treatable either way issue? However treating it without testing would involve rather lengthy hospital stays- our local hospital also can't do the testing themselves