Or is hospital clinic either totally inefficient or fobbing people off?

[Powersout]

I've been referred to the lipid clinic at my local acute trust due to familial hypercholesterolaemia. Letter received last week states that I'm on their list and to call them if I haven't heard anything from them by 15th November. I can only think of 2 posdible reasons for this system:

1. People get 'lost' from the list/list isn't managed properly so they need me to remind them that i need to be seen.
2. They're hoping that I forget this ever happened hence reducing the demand on their service!

Is there another more reasonable explanation?

They mainly mean "please don't chase up to find out when you are going to get seen, the earliest you might hear from us us is early November" because if they just told you that you are on the list, without giving an expected timescale, they would field loads of pointless calls.

They phrase it in this way to act as a 2nd level triage. They are expecting to know when you can be seen by 2nd week Nov but it's not perfectly predictable. If they have a tricky couple of months and some people are going to be bounced to December they need to know who is stressed out or suffering with the wait.

It’s a polite way of saying please don’t chase us before the 15th November as they will be working on the next tranche of clinics during the next 6 weeks or so and won’t be able to give you a date before then.

This….l every referral I’ve ever had comes with a letter like this…..and I’ve been referred to a lot of clinics