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"My son's referral"

About: Craigavon Area Hospital / Audiology Services

(as a parent/guardian),

My 5-year-old son has recently  been referred urgently to Audiology by the GP. He cannot hear out of his right ear at all and this is really impacting him in every aspect of his learning at school and everyday interactions.

I have contacted the audiology department on a number of occasions to follow up on the referral. When calling the department the phone is never answered and you have to leave a voicemail to then be called back unpredictability maybe hours later.

When I was called back I was informed the referral has not even been triaged yet and this is now over 3 weeks post-referral. I was also informed if it is deemed urgent the wait is 3 months and non urgent 18 months.

I find it very frustrating that even the basic triage of a referral is so delayed, prolonging the process even longer. Given the age of my son and the impact it is having on his development I would like it to be treated as urgent as deemed by his GP and have the appropriate timely response with an urgent appointment. 

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Responses

Response from Rebecca Osbourne, Lead Audiologist, Craigavon Area Hospital, Surgery and Clinical Services Directorate, Southern Health and Social Care Trust 2 days ago
Rebecca Osbourne
Lead Audiologist, Craigavon Area Hospital, Surgery and Clinical Services Directorate,
Southern Health and Social Care Trust
Submitted on 16/04/2025 at 11:39
Published on Care Opinion at 12:36


Thank you for taking the time providing feedback to the service.

I can understand this is a very worrying time for you as a parent and the impact this is having.

We are aware that Audiology has extremely busy phone lines as we are covering across the three different sites. We have tried to address this by adding the option to leave a voicemail for a call back and we endeavor to return these calls as quickly as possible.

I apologise there was a delay in triage of your sons referral. We have now addressed this back log of referrals and this is currently up to date. We have put new systems in place to ensure a more timely triage and prevent this back log in the future. Although triage had been delayed please be assured that all referrals are back dated to original date of referral and this would not cause any delay in your sons treatment.

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience, I hope this will reassure you and your feedback has been useful.

Kind Regards

Rebecca

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