Well, I had a long chat with the consultant's secretary today - three separate calls in fact. It started thus: "I have your message. You wanted to know if your thyroid had been scanned and it has."
I said, "....and? I would like to know what the scan showed."
Then I had to explain the whole thing again, that I wanted to talk to someone - who actually knew about my case, who understood it and had read the notes - before I had to sign another consent form, this time for radiotherapy. The "member of my team" didn't cut the mustard. I asked who he actually was.
"He's a Staff Grade"
"But Staff Grade means nothing to me - what is it?"
"He's one down from a consultant."
Hmmm.
The secretary didn't think she could manage to get me into tomorrow's clinic because it was already full. And there wasn't a clinic the week after.
"But I have an appointment for the clinic the week after!" I exclaimed.
Therein lay the next problem. Both the lead consultant and "a member of his team" were unavailable on the day I had been given the appointment. In fact there should have been no clinic scheduled that day.
She would ring me back and indeed she did. There would be a registrar doing that clinic but they didn't know who yet.
"Shall I send you a complaint form?"
"No, not at this point, I just want to resolve this. I wish to talk to the consultant as I've been trying to get information for six weeks now. I've been attempting to do it through my link nurse," I said.
"Oh you should have come direct to me," she said.
"Well I would have done had the little booklet told me to do that instead of referring me to the link nurse. Of course if I cannot get to speak to my consultant then I will be making a complaint."
The secretary said she would try again to resolve the problem and ring me back again. True to her word she did. Alleluia! I now have an appointment with The Man tomorrow afternoon.
P.S. Very productive day all round; I've re-grouted kitchen tiles, re-varnish and re-sealed all round sink.
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