"Knee Ligament Surgery"

I am writing this on behalf of my partner.

He was referred for ligament surgery last October, and was due to get a pre-op in December last year. However, in this time we were told he had to go through a cycle of chemotherapy. His chemotherapy finished in February, resulting in the 'all clear' in mid-March this year. He was immediately referred back to his surgeon for his knee following the all clear and was told they would be in touch. Nearly 4 months on, he has heard no word whatsoever. He has phoned and been told on 6 separate occasions that his surgeon would phone him on certain dates, and hasn't had a single phone call.

My partner has already been off work for 2 years now after his motorbike accident. He had a lot of surgery and operations to get to the stage to be able to get his ligaments done, as well as getting & beating cancer in the middle of it all. If he had had his ligament surgery within the 12 weeks from his second referral date, he would have recovered by now and be back at work.

This is completely holding up his life now. He cannot work, cannot earn any money and cannot live properly now until he gets this operation. He is actually losing wages now, as he has not been getting sick pay for over 18 months, and could have actually been back at work earning a wage if this operation was done. As if what we have been through the past two years hasn't been bad enough, we are now being forced to wait for the final piece of the puzzle to be fixed.

It's not really the waiting as such that's the issue, it's the lack of communication. How are we meant to make any future plans when we have no idea what's happening? He hasn't even had any communication regarding his pre-op, never mind the actual surgery. We feel this service is poor, and looks very bad on the NHS. Through the heaps of surgery and appointments he has had to have, this is the only thing we can complain about. We are very close to putting in a formal complaint about this, and know we have a case as his GP is even angry about this treatment.

We are losing money, time, and cannot move forward with life until this is sorted, and we have had not one piece of communication to give us a reason why, or give us even an inkling of an idea to what is happening.

My partner was referred to ARI but is due to get his surgery at Woodend.