Sir, – For the past 18 years I have been referring patients who require a specialist ear, nose or throat opinion to the service in the Mater hospital.
In the past three months my referral letters have been returned to me, advising that my patients are no longer in the catchment area for this service.
These returns are not relating to new referrals but patients who have been languishing on a waiting list for a year already. The covering letter is not from the ENT surgeon but a manager.
I now have the unhappy task of advising my patients that they have been waiting in vain for a year and that we have to begin to wait all over again in another hospital, which will be further away than the Mater but might accept my referral, or indeed may not.
This situation is utterly unfair on patients, showing blatant disregard for them. As for GPs, the application of catchment areas for some services but not others seems odd. It adds another barrier to access to medical care.
It would also show some respect to GPs if we were informed of these changes as they happen.
Of course, if one has private cover, the catchment area doesn’t apply. I despair. – Yours, etc,