"No further forward"

My 2 year old son was referred to paediatric ENT at Forth Valley in February of last year over concerns about sleep apnoea. By July we hadn't heard anything and I was becoming increasingly concerned about his hearing as he was constantly congested and his volume of speech was increasing. His speech sounds were very unclear and being a medical professional myself I was aware that the errors he was making were not typically developing errors. 

My GP wrote a letter to expedite the referral and we were seen at Forth Valley ENT the following month. He confirmed what we expected that my son had large tonsils and adenoids and likely glue ear. He said an Audiology assessment and overnight sleep study were required. We did the sleep study that night and returned it the following day. We went back to ENT a month later to find that the Audiology referral hadn't been made. The sleep study confirmed as expected that my son had sleep apnoea and required surgery to resolve this. Because he was under 3 he was referred to Glasgow Children's Hospital for this surgery.

When I called Glasgow ENT a few weeks later they still hadn't received his referral and it was only sent because I chased it up with Forth Valley. We were advised that it would likely be the end of February before we saw the consultant in Glasgow. I was very concerned as I feel my son's clinical symptoms have worsened as he's getting older. He really struggles for breath at night with pauses of 12 seconds before he startles and gets a breath. It's very distressing to listen to. He's always tired as his sleep quality is so poor. He is so prone to catching bugs and always has a cough or cold and because he is so congested he coughs in the night and vomits in his cot.

I recently spoke to my GP again who wrote a letter to the Glasgow Children's hospital and we were then offered an appointment at Glasgow Children's Hospital. We left the appointment utterly deflated to find out that our son was only being added to their surgery waiting list in Glasgow despite a referral letter in September from a consultant saying he needed the surgery. We were also advised that there are 1000 children ahead of him needing a similar procedure and surgeries weren't even being done at the moment. We are almost a year down the line and feel like we're no further forward.

Working in the NHS myself, I understand the awful impact the pandemic has had on our children's services but I just don't understand why surgeries are not being done.