"Long awaited appointment with "Best" Ankle..."

I have never experienced such a horrendous outpt appointment as I did with my daughter yesterday. I will be making an official complaint, and this will be supported by our GP, as we explained the farce that we had, which left both myself and my daughter in tears and in shock.

It appears that if you have the name as the best ankle surgeon in Europe you don't need to introduce yourself, you could be anyone, or apologise for keeping you waiting an hour and half. When you have been referred by another surgeon at the same hospital for an operation, you hope that your new consultant knows why you are there- alas this was the beginning of our expectations being shattered, we were greeted with a person saying to us "why are you here?". Another person was hovering in the back ground, no idea who they were, and looked terrified most of the time - they said nothing throughout the whole apt. I tried to explain what I had been told by the previous consultant as to why we were there, and was rewarded with the hand of the consultant going up explaining that they weren't concerned about an abnormal MRI scan. I will be making a formal complaint, as the next few minutes in the apt became farcical, as my daughter was told she was too fat to have any surgery for her ankle, the risks were too high, but not too high for weight loss surgery it appeared, as this was his answer to the problem. they wanted to refer her to yet another pain clinic, the third one in the 2 and half years she has had this problem. Why? She had a pain condition that she got rid of over a year ago was another reason, and that the referral was for his opinion only and nothing more. My daughter broke down in front of both the consultant , the junior and the nurse, and sadly I have to say that it appears that compassion is no longer part of the NHS, as all the nurse did was tell us that we had to book another apt in 4 months, the doctors just walked out after asking my daughter what does she want to do- her reply was "I don't care, I just want to go home".

I was a nurse many years ago, and if someone was crying the very least I would do was offer a box of tissues, and show some compassion.

All they were interested in was getting us out and more people through as they were running so late.

I am ashamed to associate myself to the profession if this is what our nurses are like now. Hard I know, but just a glimmer would have been good as we felt totally lost and confused by this consultants reaction to a referral asking to do an ankle operation.

My daughter is in pain because she has an unstable ankle due to ligament damage, and this consultant has said they will do nothing for her - they left her in pain, distress, confused and shocked - they didn't manage her expectations and simply appeared not to care. I would never go back to this consultant even if this was the best ankle specialist in the world.