Are all hospital appointments likely to be cancelled?

[CornflakeBreath]

I have an appointment in a few weeks for an internal scan and it just hit me that it might get cancelled as staff are needed elsewhere. Is this likely do we think?

How many weeks? As things stand almost certainly I'd say.

Most likely yes, all but emergency appointments will be cancelled at least for the next month.

My DS has got one next week and the hospital sent a text out saying they still want people to arrive at their appointments as normal.

My son has a hospital appointment next Friday and I received a text yesterday reminding us to attend.

I am booked in for an operation on Tuesday . I had a phone call yesterday from admissions to check I was still attending .

I work for the NHS. Our advice has been to review any appointments we have booked in and consider alternatives eg phone consulatation or postponing appointmnet where possible but it is a clinical judgement. We dont want everything to stop but have to be realistic. We already have staff off self isolating and this is likely to get wors so staff will need to be moved to cover the most important and critical areas.

Thank you for the replies! Looks like it will be a case of wait and see for now!

I had one on Thursday at royal London hospital, it was cancelled and done over the phone and my prescription left for me to pick up. Was told I needed to pick it up by Friday (yesterday ) as they are limiting all people coming to the door in their department

I'm quite worried about this. I'm a high risk pregnancy and from 16 weeks (end of April) will need at least bi weekly scans to check baby has room to grow and that my cervix isn't opening. Pre term labour risk is high and they'd mentioned possible rupture I'm really concerned this now won't happen and I'll lose the baby/serious risks for myself. Would you see those appointments as urgent? They kind of are but kind of not.

If you compare it to my appointment which is to check for a source of ongoing pain, yours would definitely be more of an urgent and necessary right now type appointment. Mine could wait a bit longer and be pushed back. Hopefully if they do cancel, it’s triaged a bit like that.

Although part of me worries mine getting cancelled means something serious would be missed and I’d end up ill where I wouldn’t have if I’d gone and it got found early or something.

The strain on the nhs is going to be stressful.

@CornflakeBreath I know- it was bad enough already. Hope your scan goes ahead as planned and all is ok. The potential knock on effects of this are scary!

Depends. DH has an eye condition - all eye appointments were being cancelled for his clinic next week except him as he is currently having weekly follow up as his vision is unstable.

So I think it will be - elective, non-urgent, routine stuff - yes, that's getting cancelled.

Urgent things - cancer diagnosis and treatment, pregnancy related stuff - you can't exactly postpone someone being pregnant til later in the year, life/sight saving stuff will carry on.

But if you are waiting for elective orthopaedic surgery for example, that will be the first to be cancelled.

If it gets really serious all the operating theatres will be converted into intensive care units, and there won't be acute medicine doctors to cover routine clinics as their skills will be needed on the wards.

It was announced yday that hospitals in Wales have/will cancel any non-urgent outpatients appointments and elective surgery.

I think we are heading to all non urgent or out patient being cancelled. They will let you know.

Oh shit
I have one at the end of the month

All children's outpatients appoint were cancelled here last weds. No clinics are running and my childs op next week is also cancelled.
So the answer is probably yes!

My trust is triaging all upcoming appointments and converting to telephone appointments where necessary, or for needed scans or f2f appointments, they will go ahead. If you're trusted as not urgent (in comparison to other needs) then you may be rescheduled.
You probably won't here for a few weeks as they'll be working through this weeks clinics first and it requires a clinician, usually the consultant to go through previous letters and results to determine which to convert, then an admin person needs to amend the type of clinic, then let the appropriate people know. All this whilst managing the usual patients on the ward, plus doing corona training and attending meetings about corona. So it all takes time. I'd do as you have said you will, hold tight until informed otherwise.

We are working on scheduling additional clinics in the next few months (subject to corona) to reaccomodate those that get rescheduled, and lists are being kept with patients put on the list in priority order to be seen. I'm sure your trust will be doing the same! Hopefully!

And remember don't actually attend the hospital if you have any symptoms (but do let them know if you cant go)!

Best of luck I hope you get seen quickly and find out the source of your pain and get a solution quickly x