"Being told I missed appointments I was never made aware of "

In September 2013 my doctor in Calderdale referred me to a specialist re the after effects of radiotherapy.

I heard nothing for a number of weeks until I received a copy of a letter sent to my Doctor and my Oncologist in Calderdale saying I had missed two appointments at St James's Leeds in early & mid November.

I immediately rang the secretary of the specialist at St James's, pointing out I had not received any appointments and was passed to the Appointments Dept.

The following Tuesday, at 11. 30am I received an appointment for 11am that very morning, which obviously it was not possible to attend. I spoke again to Appointments and was told that the person speaking had left me a message on my phone.

There were no missed calls on my house phone or mobile and no messages on either plus I had other messages timed both before and after the supposed message had been left, so clearly the call was not made or was made to the wrong number.

Being a member of our local NHS Trust and other NHS organisations, I get lots of letters, appointments, phone messages and emails etc from them, from Calderdale Royal Hospital and from my Doctor, none of which go missing.

I find it very hard to believe that two letters from St James's, two weeks apart plus a phone call/message would go astray when nothing else does.

I eventually attended an appointment last week and was told I would be 'fast-tracked' to a specialist in Calderdale, but to date 6 days later I have not received an appointment. Should I have had an appointment by now? I am only mentioning this as I am concerned that this appointment may also 'go astray.'

If I had a suspicious mind I might think that this was a crafty way of 'massaging' appointment waiting times and/or missed appointment figures.

I double checked with Appointments that all the contact details they held for me were accurate.