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Waiting 2 months to get a phone call from a paediatric dieti...

Posted By Gf for life

"Waiting 2 months to get a phone call from a paediatric dietician"

About: South West Acute Hospital / Paediatric Services

(as a parent/guardian),

My daughter was diagnosed with coeliacs disease in June 2021. We were seen by a consultant in the swah within 10 days. He informed us that he would send an urgent referral to the paediatric dietician and we would be seen within weeks. This actually took 2 long months, and was a telephone appointment.

The dietician I spoke to was lovely and informative. But 2 months to wait is totally unacceptable. Coeliacs disease is a serious condition, and changing to a gluten free diet is difficult, but as a family, we felt we did this totally on our own, hoping we were doing it right. 

Regardless of a pandemic, my daughter is only 11 years of age. And shown have been seen by a dietician a) in person and b) within 2 weeks, not 2 months. 

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Responses

Response from Siobhan McCaffrey, Team Leader- SWAH Dietetics, South West Acute Hospital SWAH, WHSCT 2 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Siobhan McCaffrey
Team Leader- SWAH Dietetics, South West Acute Hospital SWAH,
WHSCT

Submitted on 17/08/2021 at 13:27
Published on Care Opinion at 16:45

Hi Gf for life,

Thank you for taking the time to share your story. First of all, I want to apologise for the length of time you had to wait for Dietetic advise, it is unacceptable but I’m delighted that you found the input from the Dietitian informative and hopefully we can continue to support you and your family in the future.

We are currently running our service on a blended model of face to face and virtual appointments and we will take your feedback on board as we are continually reviewing this relatively new way of working for our service and welcome your feedback.

In relation to our waiting times, the demand on our service exceeds our current capacity and we have experienced a significant increase in urgent referrals and therefore we are not able to meet our target waiting times. This is very disappointing for many families. We recently tried to secure some waiting list initiative funding to help address this situation but we were unsuccessful. We will continue to work with the Trust and Commissioners to try to address our waiting times and in the meantime, we will inform our referrers (Consultants, GP’s etc) of our current waiting times so that they can give up to date information to families.

Kind regards

Siobhan McCaffrey

Team Lead SWAH/Paediatric Dietitian

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Response from Vi Gray, Professional Nursing Support , PCOP, Western Health & Social Care Trust 2 years ago
We have made a change
Vi Gray
Professional Nursing Support , PCOP,
Western Health & Social Care Trust

encourage people to share their experiences of health and social care, what matters to you, what you particularly liked or disliked so that we can share with the relevant department, and staff .

Submitted on 07/12/2021 at 13:23
Published on Care Opinion at 14:26

picture of Vi Gray

Hello Gf for life

Following on your feedback I would like to provide you with an update from the Team Leader and to let you know that

"Patients newly diagnosed with Coeliac disease are being offered a face to face appointment"

Thank you again for sharing your experience

Regards

Vi Gray

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