ok, if you are being referref to hospital for something, and said referral comes thru in less that two weeks, should I.....................

[psychomum5]

......be thrilled with prompt service

or fret that it means that they are more worried than they are letting on??

especially when they said the referral could be up to 18wks!!

they did say that they would put 'needs seeing quickly' on the referral, but even so, I never expected to be rung up this afternoon to come in on the 30th march.

am glad, don;t get me wrong, as it means (hopefully) that they will work out what is wrong, but .........

lol... gp warned us when dd was being referred to ENT that it was a very long wait and we wouldn't hear anything for months

got the appointment for 2 weeks after that conversation

i think it's luck of the draw in some respects, just be grateful they were wrong and don't read into it too much

hope it goes well

Sometimes they get a cancellation and can slot someone in earlier. My mum was a receptionist at an NHS hospital and she said that she always felt sorry for anyone getting a quick appointment as they worried.

In some areas they are pumping money into reducing waiting times by offering evening and weekend clinics.

I told a mum on the phone the other day that I needed to refer her daughter for an audiology appointment. She got the appointment letter through before she received mine with the original results, and the appointment is for 3 weeks time! (It has been up to 16 weeks lately).

Maybe you got a cancellation?

ooh thankyou both.

and sidge

yes, maybe they had a cancellation and I was the lucky one who got given it.....

luck of the draw i think mate, I was referred on 12th feb to see surgeon for gall bladder removal, and still waiting to hear anything.

Have agreed to wait until easter and if i dont hear anything, i will ask GP to chase.

Good on you for decent service, i may just move down your way if i dont get sorted soon!

I think they tend to move fastest in the case of things they can fix, especially if leaving it for a while would make it more difficult to fix.

When my dad had testicular cancer he was in surgery extremely quickly, because they knew that the quicker they did it the less likely it was that they would have to do more complicated things later.

Or it could just be luck, a space coming up because of a cancellation.

Is this for you being a conundrum? Or wasn't one of your DDs not very well too?

(mangled sentence there)

see trillian, yours is the reason I am fretting.

((not that I am fretting about testicular cancer of course, as that would be a pretty odd thing for me to fret about given that I am female....hoping your dad was fixed??))

I am fretting about them thinking I have something more worng which s why I am in quickly........

oh and yes trillian, tis for me being a conundrum.

DD3 also isn;t well and her referrall went tits up as they lost her blood test results so has to do the whole thing again, but hers is a different hopsital!

I was hoping that it wouldn't be serious, but something that can be fixed quickly so they are going to whisk you in, fix you, and send you away feeling better.

I can see the doctors now, looking at a test result and saying:

'Why didn't we see it before?'
'Silly us. Well, that's easy to fix.'
'Yes, let's get her in here, sort it, and tick this off our list.'

Do they have 'case closed' statistics? Maybe they need to have as many 'successes' as they can before the end of March so they want to get you in quick because you are an easy one to sort out.

lol......yes, maybe that is me.....an easy case that they can finish quickly

Boy had an eye referral at one point and it came through stupidly quickly, we put it down to him being NHS - think the eye hospital might just be quick though

lol flame, thanks for that.

Wait times are going down all the time- frightening the living daylights out of patients everywhere. For example, 7 or 8years ago in cardiac surgery you waited 18 months to see a cardiologist who told you that you would need surgery. You would then wait up to 18months to see asurgeon who would confirm you needed an op, and be put on his waiting list, wher you would languish for 18 months before being operated on. Now patients are having heart attacks, being seen by cardiology and being operated on within 6-12 weeks - things are shifting quickly!!
Also I think that if you are being referred for investigations into lumps and bumps,it's a 2 week wait as the gold standard - there have been a few threads from people worrying about how quickly they were being seen for moles and breast lumps. Hope the time passes quickly for you x

Sorry! Didn't mean to imply that that's what you're waiting for

oh no, no worries, was not thinking that that was what you were implying at all.

I think it is iritis or uvitis, at least, am hoping so.

tis just that I have been also getting odd infections and virus's, and also my white cell count is down for some unknown reason, so I think they ar just getting specialist look-see rather than make guesses and be wrong