Barrowden man given fake appointment for cancer testing at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester
A man referred to a hospital for cancer testing was told not to attend his appointment.
The patient, who is from Barrowden and has asked not to be named, was referred by his GP surgery to the cancer urology department at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.
He received a letter from the hospital giving him an appointment time. But the letter also instructed him ‘not to attend’ as it ‘is not a real appointment’.
The man, who is in his 60s, now wonders if it is a method used by hospitals to falsely meet their targets.
“It is a confusing letter, there is no way around it,” he said. “The real question is why are they sending out fake dates with a letter telling patients it is not a real appointment?”
He said he interpreted it as the hospital trying to meet Government targets.
The ‘two-week wait’ appointment system was introduced by the NHS so that anyone with symptoms that might be cancer could be seen by a specialist as quickly as possible.
Most patients referred under the two-week wait appointment system do not have cancer but may have another condition needing hospital diagnosis and treatment.
The recipient of the letter added: “If I was any older than I am, I might be totally confused by it. I had to read it several times.”
The letter also told him not to contact the hospital, so he called his GP surgery.
He then received a phone call from The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, which runs Glenfield, and received a scan.
A spokesperson for the trust said it did not send the letter. Instead such letters are produced by the national Electronic Referral System and sent automatically. This does speed up the referral process so an appropriate appointment can be made.
Siobhan Favier, deputy chief operating officer at Leicester’s Hospitals, said: “We recognise that letters like [this one] can cause confusion at what is an already anxious time for a patient. We are looking at ways to improve this communication.”
