"Urgent GP referral to audiology - 20 week wait for appointment"

I saw my GP because I had recently developed tinnitus and hearing loss affecting one ear. My GP told me he would need to refer me to the audiology department in case my symptoms were caused by a brain tumour. He showed me the referral pathway information: It said I would be assessed by an audiologist who was able to make a direct referral for diagnostic imaging. The GP told me to expect a call from the audiology department quite quickly, most likely within a couple of weeks as it was an urgent referral.

I heard nothing for 16 weeks, at which point I received a letter from the audiology department notifying me that a telephone appointment had been booked, during which a "clinician" would take a history. Enclosed with the letter was a questionnaire with some very basic questions about my hearing that I had already answered at the GP appointment.

Now, I can understand they are very busy, and I can also understand that they want to limit face-to-face appointments, and therefore need to have some form of pre-screening to triage cases. However, I don't see why it took them 16 weeks to send out an initial screening questionnaire, or why they couldn't have used the information from the GP referral to screen my case. That seems incredibly inefficient.

Most significantly, I have been waiting 16 weeks without any contact from the NHS, with a further 4 weeks to wait from now until the telephone screening appointment, in spite of being told I potentially have a brain tumour. This is not in line with the published referral pathway.

It so happens that I work in healthcare myself, and whilst I recognise my symptoms are considered potentially suggestive of acoustic neuroma, I do not believe that to be the cause in my case. But I can only imagine how frightened someone else might have been in this situation.

To tell someone they potentially have a serious, life changing/threatening illness that warrants an urgent referral, and then fail to contact them at all for 16 weeks is not acceptable.