Hello all!
I'm grateful to have found this forum and be able to connect with others going through the same process. I was diagnosed with a basal cell carcinoma on my ear a few weeks ago, which I've had now for 6 months. A week and half ago I had an appointment with a consultant at Northwick Park hospital in NW London after the original dermatologist gave their diagnosis and asked for it to be excised urgently. Up until this point everything had gone incredible quickly, I'd be contacted within a few days for appointments each time and was kept on the 2 week wait pathway. I'd receive letters with correspondence between GP and dermatologist, it would show up on my medical record in the NHS app and so on.
However after seeing this latest consultant I haven't received anything. He said that the wait time for the surgery was 4-8 weeks and the nurse said that I'd be contacted for an appointment and that I would get a MyPreOp questionnaire and gave me a piece of paper about that. Unfortunately nothing has happened since, no link for the questionnaire, no letters, no call for an appointment, nothing even showing that I visited Northwick Park in my medical record, no correspondence from this consultant to the dermatologist or GP.
What are everyone's experiences with waiting for a surgery date on the NHS? Is it normal to just wait an unknown amount of time without anything before they call you up and offer you a surgery date? It feels a bit strange after everything happening so quickly previously and the complete lack of communication is a bit worrying. I understand it's not as urgent as other cancers but still :/ I had considered going private to get it sorted out quickly but I know I wouldn't be able to comfortably afford Mohs surgery and I'm unsure if that would be offered to me on the NHS so I'm not sure what to do now. I've been in touch with the PALS team for the hospital to see if they can find out how long it will take to get a surgery date and I just have to wait to hear back.
