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Months waiting for cancer treatment

Posted By eltel

"Months waiting for cancer treatment"

About: The Royal Marsden Hospital (Surrey) / Clinical oncology

(as the patient),

I was originally diagnosed with bells palsy (twice), it was in fact adenocarcinoma of the parotid gland.

After many long delays and wrong diagnoses and endless waits for scans and tests I was finally operated on in july 2013.

I was refered to the marsden from chichester to be treated. I never did see the doctor I was told I'd see.

In april 2015 I was back in hospital with cancer of the spine. More ridiculas waiting times for scans and tests.

I had a vertebrae removed.

Later pet scan showed 2 more places on my spine, only treatable with chemo to slow them down. ( I asked for a pet scan in 2014 and was refused).

While private patients zoom through the system useing the same services as the NHS patients we have to wait.

I fear that all the months I have spent waiting has killed me.

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Responses

Response from The Royal Marsden Hospital (Surrey) 8 years ago
The Royal Marsden Hospital (Surrey)

Submitted on 06/08/2015 at 12:53
Published on nhs.uk on 07/08/2015 at 02:30

Unfortunately as you have posted the details of your experience anonymously it is difficult for us to comment on the specific elements of your care but we wanted to provide a response to your concerns as far as we can with the information that you have provided. We are very sorry that you have not had a positive experience of care during the course of your treatment for cancer – both in terms of time it took to confirm your diagnosis and the time it took for you to receive treatment in both 2013 and 2015. With very complex cancers, it can sometimes require several tests and consultations to ensure the diagnosis is accurate, the stage of the disease (an indication of the level of progression) is correct, and that the proposed treatment plan is the most effective to both treat the disease and is in the best interests of the patient. In some instances, patients need to be referred to specialist centres such as the Royal Marsden to ensure that they receive the most appropriate expert care. Unfortunately, sometimes the journey from referral to treatment can take longer than we would like because of the numbers of patients we see. We are continually looking at ways to improve this but we always do our utmost to ensure that all of our patients – irrespective of whether they are NHS or paying privately – receive high quality and specialist care in a timely fashion.

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Update posted by eltel (the patient)

As usual,wind and no redress.

I have heard all the lame excuses for all the cock ups.

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