"Reassuring people that they haven't been forgotten"

Overall, mine is a positive story with some suggestions for how I'd love things to change in the future. I received excellent and timely care from the Colposcopy team working out of Stobhill. One doctor in particular has been reassuring and with excellent advice.

After a colposcopy appointment suggested that watchful waiting was no longer the best option for me, the doctor placed me on a waiting list for a hysterectomy, requesting a degree of urgency due to the risks of cervical cancer developing. I was happy with this, but then heard absolutely nothing from any care team for 2 months. I was not on any surgeon's list, so had no one to speak with, and - as you might imagine - had many questions about the procedure, the recovery, the potential timing of the surgery (having an idea if the surgery was going to be in the next few weeks or the next six or twelve months would help to me to plan my upcoming workload at least a little) and so on.

I tried a few methods of trying to find someone to speak with, and am extremely grateful to those who tried to help me out. I called the phone numbers of Gynaecology Depts listed on the NHSGGC website and a wonderful nurse went above and beyond to confirm that I had definitely been referred, but could offer no more information than that. A few weeks later I used Twitter DMs and again someone was able to contact the doctor or a colleague and confirm that I was on a list and had been referred with a degree of priority.

A few weeks after that I was speaking with my GP's wonderful practice nurse for my regular asthma check, who also took time to find out if there was any news, making calls to others and then calling me back to report. I was and remain very grateful for all these efforts, but I wondered: Wouldn't it be more efficient to have some non-clinical people whose jobs are simply to contact worried people to reassure them that they've not been forgotten? They might perhaps send out information like the leaflets I got in my pre-op assessment. I'd have loved to have these well in advance so I had something official to read rather than taking to Google.

Managing expectations in a more controlled and proactive way would, it seems to me, help NHS staff by reducing the number of unsolicited enquiries (which will tend to take longer to chase and resolve and by their nature distract staff from their actual jobs). It would have made the world of difference, psychologically speaking, if I'd just had someone to call in the meantime. I imagine that uncertainty is a huge problem for many people, and while the source of the uncertainty often cannot be resolved, the way it is managed could surely reduce the adverse effects of it on patients, their carers and families, and on NHS staff.

In the end, I had around 3 weeks' notice for my surgery, which was carried out as planned and without a hitch last week. I'm recovering quickly and well. I am extremely grateful for the care of both doctors along with the whole theatre and anaesthetic team who were fantastic. I've left separate feedback for the Ward team at the RAH who were brilliant. My thanks to everyone who helped.