Ear Grommets - How long did you wait on NHS ?

[mummydear]

Our DS2 aged 4 in Summer will be starting school in Sept. He has had a hearin test that indicates glue ear, suggestion of grommets has been made. He is also under going speech therapy.

What has been your experience of waiting time between hearin test, consultant and grommets?

I know it will vary bewteen parts of the country but if you could give an indication of where you are.

We may consider doing it privately even though we have no insurance.

Cheers

I'm bumping this for you.
My ds has had grommets twice, but he was put on the urgent list (first time due to breathing difficulties - they took out adenoids and tonsils as well as putting in grommets - second time due to repeated misdiagnosis which meant that he had needed them for some time and had speech delay, behavioural problems and was finding it hard at school) - he's an extreme case so probably not comparable.
Good luck.

(We looked at having ds's op privatedly (the first one) and it was very easy to arrange - just got our GP to refer him to the local private audiologist, they examined him (cost about £75 I think), and gave us a quote for the operation (was about £2750 but included adenoids and tonsils which are way more complicated than grommets alone) - would have been within the month - but in the meantime one of the NHS doctors diagnosed the breathing problems and he shot up the NHS list).

Ds has had 2 lots too. Both times offered appointments for op within about 10 days, both times had to turn down (once for asthma attack, other because it was his birthday party) and then waited about 6 weeks

I started a thread the other day about hearing problems and school - {http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=138&threadid=175034&stamp=060519203645\here it is}

We were referred ages ago - think around April. THe sodding GP had actually written in dd's letter apologising for referring her for such a trivial matter (they thought it was just wax in her ear but we knew it was more as her hearing was severely affected). So had we waited for that appointment it would have been around 16 weeks for the appointment with the ENT and then another 12-16 weeks once she'd been seen to get on the list for the op.

As it is, we went private for the first appointment (saw an excellent ENT with an interest in hearing issues in SW London). We're back on the NHS and will see them in June - if they decide they want to operate they have told us it will be 3-4 months from then.

\link{http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=138&threadid=175034&stamp=060519203645\here}

Hi Foxinsocks , interesting that you went private to see ENT specailist. We paid privately for hearing test due to waiting list of 4 months on NHS and the fact that the speech theraphy hadn't been going too well.

We are off to the GP week to seek a referral to ENT. If we see ENT privalety can we then go on NHS list for an op if necessary ? Not quite sure how it all works .

By the way we in Surrey so would be interested in your specilalist.

The man we saw works on the NHS and privately (think this is the key). He works at several hospitals - we paid to see him and he removed the wax and dd then did a hearing test (there and then). He was fabulous. We asked if we could be referred to see him at one of his NHS hospitals once we knew what we were dealing with (beforehand, we had no idea because no-one could see into her ears or do a hearing test because of all the wax). So he arranged for us to be referred to him at one of the hosp he does NHS work at (think it is Queen Mary's in Carshalton, part of the Epsom hospital trust).

He really is fantastic - he was brilliant with dd, ever so gentle but also very thorough and went through all the options. We saw him at his private hosp in Sutton, St Anthonys. I've linked to his \link{http://www.stanthonys.org.uk/dkselvadurai.html\page}

It was v expensive because we did hearing tests and wax removal etc. (I think all in all, it came to about £250) but we felt it was definitely worth it because we were totally in the dark before we saw him.

by the way, if you ask your GP for a referral, ask for a NHS referral (so you can start it off) but get a copy of the referral letter so if you want to see someone privately in the meantime, you have the letter (which you will need even if you go private).

Thanks foxinsocks , good advice about the referral letter.

The guy foxinsocks links to is great. We see him at St Helier - though he didn't do my sons ops,we live in East Surrey but asked to move to him as we already have to go there for audiology

Ok let me get this right, you could pay privately to see a consultant and as long as he does NHS work ask to be put on the NHS list for the operation ?

I contacted our local hospital today and basically it is 3 to 4 months to see a consultant and it would be 3 to 4 months wait for an operation.

So if we had waited 4 months for a hearing test it could have taken a year to get this sorted.

So if we pay to see a consultant and if we are then able to be put on NHS list we have jumped the queue by 8 months .

A totally bizarre system, I am just thankful that its is not anything more serious . Good old NHS !!

Not sure as we didn't go private, once it became aparent that he may have a permanent hearing loss we were seen immediately. Also because of waiting list targets there are some strange arrangements like Saturday catch up sessions and ops in BUPA hospitals paid by NHS both of which DS has had which mean waitng times were shorter than we were first told

we are going to see ENT with DD2 on 6th June. Originally we were told it was a 13 week wait minimum to see the consultant. I complained and so now we are being seen much quicker. I don't understand why children with glue ear who are in so much discomfort have to wait so long! I am hoping DD2 will get grommits very soon

DS has had 3 lots of grommets and each time it has been a matter of a few weeks between actually deciding to go ahead and an appt. date. I would say it has been between 3 and 6 weeks although once we got a date but then got a cancellation so that was from out patient appt on the Monday to actual op on the Friday of the following week.

My concern is that if we wait on NHS then he could get behind in school as he starts reception in September compounded by the fact that he is a summer baby and that he has been having so called speech therapy since the begining of the year.

DS2 is certainly not in pain but he is behind in his speech.

How long did you actually wait Yorkiegirl ? It will be interesting to know what they say about the wait for grommits, please come back and update us .

Bozza- has he has three lots because they fell out ? Over what space of time has this happened.

This would be the risk of paying privately is that we could end up paying for more than one operation.

Sorry for all te questions folks, just need to get all this staright in my mind for decision making :)

Right well DS's glue ear failed his 7 month check and so was referred to the audiology dept where he had hearing tests for a while and got referred to the consultant. He had his first lot of grommets when he was 2.3. They fell out as I think is normal. I think they hope that the glue ear will correct itself but this was not the case with DS so he had more grommets and an adenoidectomy at 3.6 (that was a hard day because DD was a breastfed newborn). Again the grommets fell out and DS's hearing deteriorated. So in the end it was decided to put in some t-shaped grommets which do not fall out. These were done last July when he was 4.5 in time for him starting school in September. The downside is that he will probably need another operation to remove them at some point. However the grommet operation is quite minor - the adenoidectomy was harder.

Waited about 3 months first time, in the North of England and abour 2 months second time, in the South.

Grommets do a great job for glue ear :)

Bozza , hope you Ds is Ok now, how has he been at school ?

People have told me that its the wait for the inital hearing test that takes the longest amount of time , then things can get a move on.

He has been absolutely fine. Every time he has had the grommets in they have made an instant impact and we have had lots of "what's that noise, mummy?" questions - things like birds singing, background noise on CDs/TV, buses on the main road which have made us realise we have done the right thing. But then when the grommets fell out his hearing has gradually deteriorated. Because these grommets have not fallen out he is still hearing well. He is currently on 6 monthly appts with the consultant and had his last one in March.

if we had waited for our first NHS appointment to come up we would have waited 4 months just to see an ENT to remove the wax (we had the appointment date). We then would have waited another 4 months for the hearing test (as they wouldn't put her on the list for this until they had the wax out and thought there was a problem) and once they had found her hearing loss, we would then have had to wait to see if it had gone away and then had the op. I think it would all have taken about a year.

As it is already, she has had to suffer about 2 terms of school not being able to hear properly (though this is largely due to our crap GP thinking there was no problem).

We are seeing the consultant again in June so I can let you know the precise waiting time for the op then. I know he told us it really depends on the hospital - he has different length waiting lists at each place he works (I imagine dependant on how many children get referred etc.).

I think we never really suffered with waiting times for DS too badly because we got into the system so early (when he was only 7 months). He didn't have his first grommets until he was 2.3. I think generally waiting to see consultant etc takes longer than waiting for op due to Govt targets.

An update re this - we looked into the cost of having grommets procedure done privately but could not afford it , approx £1500 , plus the issue that they may fall out etc etc.

Howvere we decided that we could afford to pay privately for a ENT Specailist consulatation. We went off to see out Gp who was fantatstic and she said it was OPK to see a consulatation privately but then be put on his/her NHS list.

GP advised us who to see, obviosuly knew consulatation quite well, worded the referral letter accordingly and saw the consulation about 10 days after that. we are now on the NHS list for grommets and shouls be about 4 months.

But doing the first part privately we have saved ourselves 8 months !! What a health care system we have ??!!!

We waited 2-3weeeks, but think that it may have been longer if dh didnt work with the surgeon.

Quite an advantage that one Honeybunny !!