A frustrating day so far

[Kaz]

(((((Jo)))))

Hope you have better luck today Crommers xx

[Ally]

LOL, Jo, you richly deserved that cuppa!

I'd have needed summat a bit stronger than a cuppa!

[miasmum]

Cromwell if you are still unable to get through please ring 111

[cromwell]

I got through on Wednesday MM.
To be fair it looks like there was a problem with my phone before that. I still got put on hold buut got through eventually.
Triage system, speak to the receptionist first. I was asked to send a photo of my swollen hand and wait for the GP to ring me back. It's a good job MrsC was on hand, no pun intended. I didn't realise how awkward it is to use one hand to take a picture with your phone of the other hand!
Anyway, it got done and the doctor rang me back saying come up now. So i did and he arranged for a blood sample to be taken on Thursday and an X-ray at either ponte or Wakefield. Just go anytime he said, which was a new one on me.
The blood sample went well (it hasn't always) and on Friday I toddled off to Ponte for an x ray, to be told that I had been given the wrong information. You can just turn up for a chest x ray but not for the hand? But as I was there, they did it anyway. Apparently they are getting a lot of GP's doing this, or so the nurse told me.
Anyhow, it's done.
Overall impressions are; the young doctor at the local practice (who could have been a locum, I've never seen him before) was very on the ball.I've certainly never had such quick service.
The hospital were very good to me, considering. But there will be a delay of up to two weeks before the GP gets the x ray. In the private hospital I went to I had an x ray done downstairs and the consultant had it in his hand ten minutes later.
Oh, and when I got home from the hospital I found a letter saying that my x ray appointment was for 31st March at Dewsbury!
So all in all fine. Very good fast service at the gp and the hospital, but big delays in appointments and results.

[miasmum]

There has always been big delays in radiology results Cromwell. They say as you leave ‘ring your GP in a couple of weeks’. When what they should say is ring in 6 weeks, but they don’t want the flack

I chased up an urgent MRI yesterday. Huge backlog even cancer 2 week waits aren’t being done within the time frame

[cromwell]

Gosh MM, that's not good.
I don't understand though. The x-ray has been taken - how can it take six weeks to get back to the local GP? I could have taken it back there myself.

[miasmum]

Because you need a radiographer to read it. The GP doesn’t get the X-ray they get a written report

[Workingman]

I do not understand why it takes so long for the information to get to GPs.

I have had loads of back X-rays and CT scans (not allowed MRI) and the results are on the monitor by the time I am wheeled back to the consultant. Now I understand that there is a lot more investigation needed from the provisional results - but weeks?

[JoM]

This reminds me of when Joe was waiting for his surgery in 2017. We’d seen the surgeon a couple of times, been given a date for the surgery and the surgeon referred us to a consultant just to confirm what needed doing and give the go ahead. This consultant said she’d send a confirmation letter to the surgeon. We asked how long this would take as his surgery was just two weeks away. She said three weeks. We both sat there open mouthed and I remember John pointing at the floor and saying “Three weeks…to send a letter from here….to down there?” We were on the floor above where we’d usually seen the surgeon in his office.
That was late on the Friday, on the Monday I spoke to PALS and on the Tuesday the letter was with the surgeon.

[Kaz]

I remember that Jo! Can't believe it was that long ago