Care Opinion

Breast Clinic waiting times

Posted By CPY

"Breast Clinic waiting times"

About: Antrim Area Hospital / Breast Care

(as a service user),

Saw GP 4 weeks ago with new breast lumps. Referred as Red Flag to Breast Clinic. Still waiting and have been advised it will be another 6 weeks. So a 10 week wait for a red flag referral - which NICE guidelines say should be no more than a 2 week wait: I am upset and angry. 

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Responses

Response from Bernie Irvine, Interim Lead Nurse Surgery, Surgery, NHSCT 2 months ago
Bernie Irvine
Interim Lead Nurse Surgery, Surgery,
NHSCT

Submitted on 23/09/2024 at 15:40
Published on Care Opinion at 15:40

Hello CPY,

My name is Bernie Irvine and I am the Lead Nurse for Surgery and Breast Care for the Northern Trust.

I sincerely apologize for the waiting time you are experiencing and the impact this is undoubtedly having.

The Trust endeavors to keep the waiting times to a minimum however the demand for the Breast service is much greater than the resources available to the Trust.

I acknowledge that the waiting time is outside NICE guidelines and we are keeping the situation under close review and maximizing every opportunity we can to have our patients seen and treated.

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Update posted by CPY (a service user)

Thank you Bernie, I really do appreciate you and all the staff are doing your best with limited resources. This is absolutely not a criticism of the unit. I just think that it is important that those higher up the management chain appreciate that we as patients are angry about waiting times and that increased waiting times particularly for something as worrying as breast lumps and waiting for many weeks to months for either the all clear or a potential cancer diagnosis is torturous and has additional mental and physical health consequences.

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