"Wait all day from 7am until 6pm for planned..."

We were so sorry to learn of your cancellation and never underestimate the impact that cancelling surgery has on a patient and their family. We appreciate that you will have been greatly inconvenienced as a result of the cancellation not to mention the anxiety you will have felt. We think we have identified you from your posting and if correct then we believe the Consultant actually came to apologise to you in person but it has been fed back to the Clinical Director for the service you did not think this was done very sympathetically. Again, if correct, the cancellation occurred due to the list overrunning as a result of a case prior to yours being more complicated than first thought. Theatre lists are planned carefully and every effort made to avoid cancelling anyone. However, complications in theatre cannot be predicted and so there are occasions when patients later on the list are affected. Elective surgical lists are planned weeks and days in advance so whilst it may be difficult for patients to understand it is not as straightforward as simply adding a patient to the list the next day as their surgeon and their specialty may not have any time allocated in Theatre on that occasion. When patients are cancelled on the day due to no clinical reason then they are subject to strict rebooking timeframes and again we believe you will have been redated appropriately. Once again we are so sorry for what happened.